Brother charged in ‘Tombstone’ death

A man who killed his sister while recreating a gun-twirling scene from the movie “Tombstone” is facing a charge of manslaughter with a firearm.

Eric Stayton, 50, was booked into jail on Friday and posted bail later that day. He told deputies the shooting was an accident, court documents said.

On Sept. 14, 2014, Stayton was hosting a birthday celebration for his sister Renee Chaires, 39, and his niece at his home on Ed White Court in southeast Leon County. Stayton told Leon County deputies hedrank two bottles of Guinness and a Miller High Life before deciding to show his family a scene Val Kilmer performed as Doc Holiday in the movie “Tombstone.”

Stayton, Renee, and four others were in his home’s carport when he started his gun-twirling routine. Thomas “Scott” Chaires, Renee’s husband, told Stayton to put away the loaded weapon, according to court documents. Stayton said he was putting the gun inside when his sister insisted he repeat the routine one more time for her daughter so she could try to guess the movie it was from.

Witnesses said the gun fell out of Stayton’s hand, hit the ground and fired a round into Renee’s neck. Stayton and Chaires immediately laid her on the ground and started performing CPR. She was taken to Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare and was pronounced dead at 11:17 that night.

Stayton was heard uttering the words, “Oh, God, I killed my sister,” while performing CPR, court documents said.

At the scene, detectives recovered the gun, beer bottles and a glass smoking pipe containing marijuana. The State Medical Examiner’s Office determined a “gunshot wound to the neck” to be the cause of death.

Stayton told deputies it was an accident and that he shouldn’t have been twirling the gun. He said he had been twirling guns for 10 years and had dropped guns while doing the routine before, but none had ever misfired.