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By Ben Kesslen
A 25-year-old Iowa woman was killed and a 32-year-old man injured when a random bullet struck them both as they were driving home early Sunday morning.
Police in Waterloo, Iowa, and a local crime-stopping unit are offering a $7,000 reward to find the person responsible for killing Micalla “KK” Rettinger and injuring her friend, Adam Kimball.
The bullet first struck Rettinger in her neck through the driver’s seat window and then hit Kimball, according to NBC affiliate KWWL in Waterloo. A third passenger in the car was uninjured.
Rettinger’s father told The Des Moines Register his daughter was likely driving her boyfriend home after an evening shift at a bar when a bullet hit. Police say both Rettinger and Kimball were returning home from work when they were hit by the bullet at around 2:30am.
After being shot, Rettinger managed to drive the car to a highway exit, where she was later pronounced dead at the scene, according to KWWL. Kimball is being treated for his injury.
“It seems so out of the ordinary and so random and senseless that I can’t even get my mind around it,” Rettinger’s father told the Register.
Waterloo Police Major Joe Leibold told KWWL in Waterloo that road rage was “one of the first things we looked into” but that this didn’t appear to be the cause of the shooting.
Traffic was light Sunday evening, and officers do not think Rettinger cut someone off.
Police also say there is no indication that Rettinger, a former University of North Iowa softball player who was studying to become a dentist, was involved in activity that might have lead to the shooting on Sunday. One possibility is that the shooter might have been hunting, legally or illegally.
Officials have not said from what distance Rettinger was shot or what kind of bullet hit her and Kimball.