Second of two

Down the road, a woman goes to visit her neighbor, and the neighbor's 49-year-old son comes in drunk, says he's going to take a shower, snags a chilled MillerCoorsBudInBev and rattles around to the back of the house where, in a moment, Patches, the woman's Jack Russell Terrier, trots back to see what's going on. A short time later, they heard an explosion that sounded like a gunshot.

The neighbor's drunk son, Ryan Hayes, gave successive explanations of what happened:

• Patches was playing with his .357 Smith & Wesson magnum and accidentally shot himself in the head. (Police told him how unlikely it was that an 11-lb dog would be able to fit the gun barrel in its mouth and exert enough pressure to pull the trigger.)
• It was an accident.