Tony Bettack
Prosecutors are charging an 18-year-old from Waupaca County with First Degree Reckless Homicide after a shooting in July that took the life of 15-year-old Jacob Peglow.
A criminal complaint states that Austin Hovarter was playing a game of cops and robbers with Peglow and another 14-year-old boy on July 26 in the Township of Farmington when the shooting happened. In their initial investigation, the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Office believed the shooting to be accidental.
The complaint says Hovarter claimed to have taken a .22 revolver from a safe in a bedroom and then “pulled the gun up in his right hand in what he described as a gangster display of the weapon,” and pulled the trigger, thinking the gun was unloaded.
Hovarter will make his next appearance in court on Sept. 26.