A second person has been arrested in the November 3 shooting at St. Teresa Apartments in Brooksville, Florida, after detectives say a woman admitted hiding the revolver used in the attack. The Hernando County Sheriff's Office said Jennifer Fugate, 50, was arrested on charges of accessory after the fact, tampering with evidence and providing false information to law enforcement, after she allegedly took the gun from the accused shooter, Richard Lilly Jr., and hid it where detectives later recovered it, along with discarded ammunition. The shooting itself left one man with gunshot wounds to his arm and leg.
Source: Hernando County Sheriff's Office via Hernando Community
The case began on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, at the St. Teresa Apartments on North Broad Street in downtown Brooksville, near the Hernando County Courthouse. Deputies responded after a man called 911 saying he had been shot multiple times, in the arm and the leg. The victim identified Richard Lilly Jr. as the shooter, the sheriff's office said. He was taken to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and was later released.
Source: Hernando County Sheriff's Office via Hernando Community
Sheriff Al Nienhuis gave the first public account on the day of the shooting. The sheriff's office said the shooting followed an argument between people who knew each other, and WFLA News reported that the suspected shooter is blind and allegedly fired during the dispute, striking the victim and also damaging a nearby vehicle with multiple gunshots. The suspect was taken into custody on Tuesday, although authorities had not released his identity or formal charges by that evening; deputies have since identified him as Lilly.
Source: WFLA News
A separate domestic-violence allegation in the same case
Investigators said the file also contains a separate allegation from several days before the shooting. Detectives learned that Lilly had allegedly struck his girlfriend with a firearm and threatened to shoot her. That is an allegation reported by the sheriff's office, not a finding by a court, and it is set out here exactly as the office reported it. Taken together, the two strands — the earlier alleged attack on the girlfriend and the November 3 shooting of a man who then named Lilly to deputies — are the case prosecutors will now have to build, charge by charge, on the evidence detectives have gathered.
Source: Hernando County Sheriff's Office via Hernando Community
The gun, hidden — and recovered
The second arrest grew out of what detectives say happened after the shooting. According to the sheriff's office, Fugate admitted that Lilly handed her a revolver shortly after the shooting and told her to get rid of it. Investigators reviewed surveillance video and conducted a follow-up interview, and detectives then recovered the firearm and discarded ammunition where Fugate said she had hidden them — beneath a nearby building, according to the case summary of the sheriff's account. On the strength of that admission and the recovery, Fugate was arrested on the accessory, tampering and false-information charges, and her bond was set at $11,000.
Source: Hernando County Sheriff's Office via The BriefBrief
Lilly, the accused shooter, is being held at the Hernando County Detention Center on $105,000 bond, the sheriff's office said. Both sets of charges — the shooting case against Lilly and the accessory case against Fugate — remain allegations. Each defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court, and neither the sheriff's releases summarised here nor this report states a plea by either defendant.
Source: Hernando County Sheriff's Office via Hernando Community
What is solid
- A man was shot multiple times in the arm and leg at St. Teresa Apartments, Brooksville, on November 3, 2026; his injuries were non-life-threatening and he was later released from hospital (Hernando County Sheriff's Office).
- The victim identified Richard Lilly Jr. as the shooter; Lilly is held at the Hernando County Detention Center on $105,000 bond (sheriff's office).
- Jennifer Fugate, 50, was arrested on accessory-after-the-fact, evidence-tampering and false-information charges with bond of $11,000 after, deputies say, admitting she hid the revolver Lilly handed her (sheriff's office).
- Detectives recovered the revolver and discarded ammunition where Fugate said she had hidden them (sheriff's office).
What is only claimed
- The allegation that Lilly struck his girlfriend with a firearm and threatened her days earlier is a sheriff's-office allegation under investigation, not a court finding.
- The sheriff's first-day account, via WFLA, said the suspected shooter is blind and fired during an argument; the full circumstances of the dispute have not been laid out in a court filing in the sources used.
Why hiding a gun brings its own serious charges
Florida law treats helping after a crime as a crime in itself, and that principle — explained here as general background — is what Fugate's charge sheet reflects. Accessory after the fact means, in general terms, helping someone who has committed an offence in order to help them avoid arrest, trial or punishment; tampering with evidence covers altering, hiding or destroying something — here, allegedly, a revolver and ammunition — that could be evidence in an investigation; and giving false information to law enforcement is its own offence on top of the other two. The practical point for anyone asked to 'get rid of' something after a shooting is the one this case makes plainly: the person who hides the gun can end up in the same jail, on their own charges, even though they never fired it.
Source: Hernando County Sheriff's Office via The BriefBrief
Brooksville, and a case that is still open
Brooksville is the seat of Hernando County, on Florida's west-central coast north of Tampa, and St. Teresa Apartments sits on North Broad Street in the downtown blocks by the county courthouse — a neighbourhood where a shooting, a 911 call from the wounded man himself and two arrests inside three days are unavoidably public events. The sheriff's office said the case is still open while detectives wait on more forensic results and continue follow-up work, which means the public account of November 3 may still change as lab results and court filings arrive.
Source: Hernando County Sheriff's Office via Hernando Community
What happens next
Both defendants now move into the court process in Hernando County: Lilly on the shooting case, held on $105,000 bond, and Fugate on the accessory, tampering and false-information charges, on $11,000 bond, while detectives await the forensic results the sheriff's office described. Anyone with information about the November 3 shooting can contact Hernando County Crime Stoppers anonymously, the sheriff's office said, and tips may be eligible for a reward of up to $5,000. Awaaz Punjab will follow the charging documents and first court appearances as they are filed.
Source: Hernando County Sheriff's Office via Hernando Community
In Brooksville, a November 3 apartment shooting that wounded a man in the arm and leg has now produced two arrests: Richard Lilly Jr., accused of the shooting and held on $105,000 bond, and Jennifer Fugate, 50, accused of hiding the revolver afterwards and held on $11,000 bond — with forensic results still to come.