A 101-year-old woman wounded in an exchange of gunfire between her grandsons was recovering Monday and is expected to survive, her daughter said.
Police said Naomi Taggart was in stable but serious condition Monday at VCU Medical Center, where she was recovering from being shot in the neck during the weekend in her South Richmond home. She was not an intended target, authorities said.
"She's breathing on her own," said Taggart's daughter, Charleine Taggart, who is the mother of both suspected shooters. "She has her eyes open, and she's trying to talk."
Authorities say Steven L. Taggart, 28, and his brother, Kevin D. McCray, 36, were arguing over money when they started shooting at each other Saturday about midnight at the home the two men shared with their grandmother. The house is in the first block of East 20th Street just west of Jefferson Davis Highway.
"There was some shooting from inside and some shooting from outside," said Richmond police Lt. Emmett Williams.
Authorities arrested Steven Taggart and charged him with aggravated assault against Charleine Taggart in an incident that she said occurred Friday at the same home.
Police are looking for McCray on charges of attempted murder, use of a firearm in a felony and possession of a firearm by a felon. The charges stem from the shootout between him and his brother.
Neither man has been charged in Naomi Taggart's wounding.
Charleine Taggart said the assault charge against her son arose from an argument in which he told his mother he didn't want her to have anything to do with his 9-year-old daughter.
"I told him it was fine," she recalled Monday.
She said she then called the police but that before they arrived she was attacked and beaten in the face with a telephone receiver. She said she also was punched and kicked.
After the attack, she said, Steven Taggart complained to his grandmother that money was missing from his room and that he suspected that McCray had stolen it.
Naomi Taggart is from South Carolina but moved to Richmond about 75 years ago, her daughter said. She has been living at her current address about four years.
Plainly visible from the front yard of Naomi Taggart's home is a charred house that Charleine Taggart said once was the home of Steven Taggart. She said Steven moved in with his grandmother after his home caught fire.
A Richmond Fire Department spokesman confirmed that firefighters were summoned to the home for a blaze on Jan. 16, 2010 about 2:45 a.m. The cause of the fire was not immediately available.
Friends and neighbors praised Naomi Taggart on Monday, calling her a kind woman who enjoyed watching television game shows, especially "Jeopardy!" and "The Price is Right."
"I said a lot of prayers," Charleine Taggart said. "I didn't want her to die like this."
She added that she expects that McCray will be caught. "They'll get him; they always do," she said of her son. "Once he runs out of money, he'll turn himself in."
Anyone with information on McCray's whereabouts can call Crime Stoppers at (804) 780-1000.
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