‘My perfect angel is gone but forever in our hearts’: The wife of a Georgia pastor dies a week after being hit in the head by a stray bullet while sleeping
- Lashunda Heath-Ellison, 50, was hit in the head by a stray bullet while she was sleeping
- Her husband Mac Ellison was pastor of the nearby Temple of Faith Ministries
- The DeKalb County Police Department has since confirmed that around 12:45 a.m. on October 5, a person was shot and killed in their neighborhood
The wife of a Georgia pastor has died a week after being hit in the head by a stray bullet while lying in bed.
Lashunda Heath-Ellison was found unresponsive by her husband, Pastor Mac Ellison, after he was awakened by the sound of her snoring.
In fact, a stray bullet from a nearby shooting in her Decatur neighborhood entered the home and smashed through the headboard of her bed into her head.
The DeKalb County Police Department has since confirmed that at 12:43 a.m. on October 5, a person was shot and killed nearby.
Ellison was the pastor of the Temple of Faith Ministries. Heath-Ellison was the mother of two daughters, Jatisha and Taylor, and a son, Dejuan. She had just celebrated her 50th birthday.
Lashunda Heath-Ellison with her husband Pastor Mac Ellison
Heath-Ellison was the mother of two daughters, Jatisha and Taylor, and a son, Dejuan. She had just celebrated her 50th birthday
A photo posted online of Ellison wearing his wife’s ring next to his. “My wife Lashunda Heath-Ellison got wings,” Ellison wrote in an online tribute
In the early hours of October 5, Ellison was awakened by the sound of his wife breathing heavily. Although he shook her, the pastor found that she did not respond.
At first, Ellison thought his wife was snoring, but after turning on the light, he saw something was wrong. Then he started calling for his children.
Two of the couple’s children came and helped their father call 911 and turn their mother over, Ellison said.
When they turned her over, they discovered “blood everywhere.”
“I just woke up from very heavy breathing. And we saw blood everywhere,” the pastor said, according to WSB-TV.
The children helped their father get Heath-Ellison to Grady Memorial Hospital.
At the hospital, an X-ray showed Heath-Ellison had shrapnel near her brain, Ellison said.
When he and the children returned home from the hospital, they found a bullet hole on the outside of their home.
Later, the family also found a hole in the wall caused by the stray bullet.
“It went through the headboard and right into my wife’s head and ended up here in her sinus,” the pastor said.
In a video posted to Ellison’s Facebook page after his wife’s death, he put her wedding ring back on her finger after it was removed for a scan at the hospital
In the days following the shooting, Ellison organized for people to gather outside the hospital to pray for his wife’s recovery.
Then, on October 10, he announced on Facebook that his wife had died.
“My wife Lashunda Heath-Ellison got wings,” Ellison wrote in an online tribute.
“Please give us a moment to process this. My Perfect Angel is gone but forever in our hearts.’
In the days following the shooting, Ellison organized for people to gather outside the hospital to pray for his wife’s recovery
Since the incident, DeKalb County Police have said they were notified of a shooting at 12:43 a.m. on October 5 near the family’s home on the 2300 block of Wilkins Court.
No arrests were made in connection with the shooting.