A British doctor visiting the US has been killed in his sleep by a stray bullet fired ‘recklessly’ from a neighbouring apartment complex while asleep with his girlfriend in bed.
Matthew Willson, 31, from Surrey, was staying in an upmarket suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, having flown to America last week to visit his California-born partner Kate Shepard, a physicist.
The postdoctoral scientific researcher, from leafy Chertsey, had only been in the US for two days when he died in the freak incident, which is still being treated as homicide.
Police said they were called at 2am on Sunday to reports of the ‘reckless discharge of a firearm’ in an apartment block on Buford Highway. As they attended the scene they got a 911 call from another block of flats, where Dr. Willson was staying, saying he had sustained a gunshot injury to the head. The Briton was taken to the local trauma centre but could not be saved.
Sergeant Jacob Kissel told WSB-TV: ‘This was a senseless act – this was an innocent victim. She and her boyfriend were laying in bed. He was here visiting from England. He was visiting a loved one. He had just flown in to the Atlanta area.
‘We lean on the public to understand that this is a tragic event, and we hope that they may come forward with any information they may have.
