A man shot his estranged wife in self-defense on Christmas Eve after she allegedly tried to kill him, and she now faces an attempted second-degree murder charge, according to a release.

Angelique LaCaze, 54, was arrested on Tuesday by Natchitoches Parish Sheriff's detectives while shopping at a Natchitoches store after they had learned she'd checked herself out of a Baton Rouge facility where she'd been receiving treatment.

It began on the afternoon of Christmas Eve when the sheriff's office got a 911 call about a shooting on hunting lease on La. Highway 480 near Bubba Ridley Road, north of Campti, reads a release.

When deputies arrived six minutes later, they found LaCaze on the ground with a gunshot wound to her hip. Her husband, 53-year-old Mickey LaCaze, was providing first aid to her, but told deputies she was trying to kill him.

Angelique LaCaze, of the 100 block of Posey Road in Natchitoches, was airlifted to Ochsner LSU Health Medical Center in critical but stable condition. 

Detectives began investigating, learning that Mickey LaCaze had gone alone to his hunting lease earlier that afternoon. As he was sitting on his all-terrain vehicle, his wife "exited the woods and began firing a semi-automatic handgun at him," reads the release. 

He ran to his truck while she continued firing, grabbed a handgun and started running toward La. 480. He yelled at her to drop the gun, but she didn't.

The release states he fired one shot and struck her in the hip area.

A warrant was issued for Angelique LaCaze while she was hospitalized in Shreveport. Authorities knew she had been transferred, then learned she had left that facility.

She was found around 10 p.m. and was arrested without incident. She remains in the Natchitoches Parish Detention Center.

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