Reports conflict about who shot first, but after two members of the mob approached the house, someone opened fire. Sarah Carrier was shot in the head. Her nine-year-old niece at the house, Minnie Lee Langley, had witnessed Aaron Carrier taken from his house three days earlier. When Langley heard someone had been shot, she went downstairs to find her grandmother, Emma Carrier. Sylvester placed Minnie Lee in a firewood closet in front of him as he watched the front door, using the closet for cover: "He got behind me in the wood , and he put the gun on my shoulder, and them crackers was still shooting and going on. He put his gun on my shoulder ... told me to lean this way, and then Poly Wilkerson, he kicked the door down. When he kicked the door down, Cuz' Syl let him have it."