The mother of a 10-year-old who accidentally shot himself to death, according to police, has a plea for other parents: have gun safety talks with your children and keep talking about gun safety.
"I get all these messages, 'Please come now. We need you here'," recalls Indianapolis mother April Sarver, of Sunday night's events.
"Here" was a house on E. Vermont St. where her 10-year-old son Noah was spending the weekend with his father.
"'Noah hurt himself,' or something like that," she was told by relatives over the phone.
But April knew it was much worse than the phone messages let on.
"Before I walked out of the house, I knew my son was already dead."
Her fourth grader, Noah Sarver, was found dead in his father's house of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police say.
April was told the father went to the store. Noah and a 9-year-old cousin were playing.
"They found a gun in the alley," she said, though it's unclear when they found it. The boys then ended up in the house, alone.
April says, "I don't know if neighbors heard a pop or suddenly the cousins ears started ringing. He looked, seen Noah and run outside and started screaming."
Somehow the gun went off as Noah held it, she was told. The bullet struck Noah in the head.
"I just really think my son thought it was unloaded. Because I just don't see a kid pointing a gun to their face and shoot it."
April says her son was very intelligent, a straight-A student at School 63.
"He was 6 in this picture and my baby, I think, was 9 months," says April, sharing family photos.
Noah sprouted into a tall 10-year-old who loved basketball, LeBron James and Michael Jordan.
"You could tell he was getting into his older, getting ready to start pre-teen phase," she says. A phase of Noah's life, his mom and two brothers are now denied.
"I just had a conversation with him two weeks before this incident. Because of all the killings and the things that are happening out here in Indianapolis."
She repeatedly told him don't play with guns. Tell an adult if you find one.
"'I love you. Be good. I'll see you Sunday'," were her last words to Noah. "Sunday came. I never seen him."
The family set up a GoFundMe account to pay Noah's funeral expenses. Click here if you would like to contribute.
