Appomattox man killed in hunting accident in Campbell County

An Appomattox man is dead after he was shot by a member of his own hunting party in Campbell County on Saturday afternoon, according to officials with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Sgt. Chris Thomas said Benjamin Lee Mawyer, 28, was struck in the head with a single buckshot pellet fired from the gun of an 18-year-old who thought he was shooting at a deer.

The accident, which Thomas said occurred at about 1:45 p.m., is the second fatal hunting accident in Campbell County in the 2008-2009 hunting season.

The group was hunting off of East Ferry Road, about two miles south of Rustburg, Thomas said, and was crossing a cutover, an area where the timber had been cut down.

Thomas said the timber had been cut several years ago, and thick brush had grown up since then.

The group, all wearing the proper blaze orange, was trying to flush out deer.

“The shooter saw what he thought was a deer, fired one shot, and one buckshot pellet struck the victim in the head,” Thomas said.

Mawyer was pronounced dead at the scene, he said.

Thomas said Mawyer was wearing Carhartt bib overalls and a white long john shirt, but because of the thick growth, may have been less visible.

The name of the shooter was not released, because of the continuing investigation.

The first Campbell County hunting fatality of the season occurred on Nov. 21, when James Michael DeBrular, 56, of Halifax, accidentally shot himself in a homemade deer stand near Red House.

That accident came within two weeks of a fatal accident in Pittsylvania County, that left Wayne Phillip Logan, 57, dead.

Logan’s firearm discharged as he was climbing through brush while rabbit hunting in Gretna.