Gunfire forces friends and their children to search for a new home
By DeAndria Turner
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LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (WLKY) — Two best friends and their children are searching for a new place to live after gunfire ripped through their Park DuValle home early Saturday morning, shattering their sense of safety and leaving them unsure of what comes next.
They say more than 20 bullets struck the house around 2:30 a.m. At least one bullet landed in a child’s bedroom. No one was physically injured, but the women who live there say the emotional toll has been overwhelming.
The home was supposed to be a fresh start for Brittney Neff and Amanda McCrealy, who moved in together less than a year ago to help raise their children as one family.
“We decided it would be smarter for us to live together and help raise the kids together and just have our own little happy family,” McCrealy said.
That sense of security vanished early Saturday when gunfire erupted outside their home. Neff said bullets tore through windows and walls, narrowly missing where she had been sitting.
“My whole room just lit up,” she said. “I felt like I could feel the bullets fly past my head. There was glass bursting everywhere. There is a bullet hole exactly where I was sitting.”
The women say that more than 20 rounds penetrated the home, damaging walls, windows, and personal belongings, including winter coats. One bullet was later found in a child’s bed.
“This is the bullet I believe I found in his bed,” Neff said.
Both women said the shooting was the final breaking point after months of feeling unsafe in the neighborhood. McCrealy said her car was stolen just two months after moving in.
“The amount of things we’ve dealt with since we moved here in August, my car was stolen, and now this, it’s too much,” she said. “After bullets flew past my head, I got the message.”
That message, they say, is clear: they need to leave. But doing so isn’t simple.
“I’m scared to even bring my kids here to collect their things,” Neff said.
McCrealy said she has nowhere else to go for now.
“I don’t have family. I don’t have anywhere to go,” McCrealy said. “I’m just living here as best I can until I can get out.”
Police are still investigating who fired the shots. No arrests have been announced.
For now, the women and their children remain in the home, not because they feel safe, but because leaving takes time, money, and options they don’t yet have. In a place that once represented a new beginning, they are now counting the days until they can walk away.
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