Partner of woman killed by US hunter who allegedly mistook her for deer says death ‘no accident’

The partner of a Delaware woman who was shot dead by a hunter allegedly mistaking her for a deer has said the killing was “senseless” and the hunter had “no excuse”.

“I have never seen a deer with only two legs,” Minivaldo Velásquez told the Delaware public news outlet WHYY in an interview published on Thursday about the death six days earlier of Santos Maria Chilel Soto. “It doesn’t make sense – no.”

Velásquez’s comments came after authorities investigating the case arrested 74-year-old Walter Moorhead on suspicion of manslaughter, which Delaware defines as recklessness causing the death of another person.