Troubled Over Daughter’s Death, Woman Buys Gun, Kills Herself

A 52-year-old mother, distraught over her only daughter’s death, complied with Florida’s three-day “cooling off” period before she picked up a new gun and killed herself with it.

“If we had known that she was in a state of grief because of what happened to her daughter . . . we would not have sold her the gun,” said Sharon Brown, daughter of the president of Mom and Pop’s Guns.

Connie Clay killed herself Thursday after seeing her daughter, Christina, for the last time at the funeral home.

The 20-year-old woman died Monday from injuries she suffered three weeks ago in a car wreck. Later that day, Clay paid for a semiautomatic pistol at the store in Ft. Pierce, Fla.

The clerk who sold Clay the gun said she was rational and calm, Brown said.

“My heart goes out to the family,” Brown said. “There’s no way by looking at a person to tell what they’re going to do.”

After Clay left the funeral home Thursday, her relatives, fearing that she was suicidal, frantically called gun stores in the area to describe her and warn against selling her a weapon, police said.

They reached Mom and Pop’s shortly after Clay left the store with the gun. The employee who sold Clay the pistol called police.

But Clay had already gone home and locked herself in a bedroom. Her family tried to talk with her through the door until police arrived and told them to leave the house.

As they left, Clay shot herself, police said.

“Waiting periods don’t work, either as a deterrent to crime or a deterrent to suicide,” said Marion Hammer, first vice president of the National Rifle Assn. in Tallahassee.