By O’Ryan Johnson
The Boston Herald
SOMERSET, Mass. — The Somerset wife of a police officer has been charged after she acknowledged she accidentally shot herself, then fabricated an elaborate story about a home invader who shot her in the arm, police said.
Jennifer Smith, a 33-year-old nurse, is expected to be arraigned tomorrow for filing a false police report and lying to criminal investigators.
Police said she confessed to the hoax yesterday after dozens of cops spent the previous night searching the woods and land around her home with K-9 units and on foot. She had claimed a Hispanic male attacked her.
``During the course of the investigation Ms. Smith eventually admitted to misleading authorities about the incident in an attempt to cover up a discharge of the weapon within her home that resulted in her injuries,’' police said in a statement.
Smith was hospitalized Friday night after she told police she had returned home from getting groceries when a man approached her in the garage and broke a window to follow her into her home. She grabbed a gun, she originally told police, but it was taken during a struggle and she was shot by the suspect.
Smith sat with a police officer who created a composite sketch of the suspect that was widely distributed to the media. Early yesterday afternoon, police stopped distributing the sketch, and they released a statement on the charges later in the day.
Copyright 2009 The Boston Herald Inc.