Khori Patterson

A 21-month-old boy, Khori Patterson, died after accidentally shooting himself in his mother's home, in the city's Baden neighborhood on Melvin Avenue just east of Jennings. Khori's mother, Alea Little, 24, and her boyfriend, Donnell Straughter, 30, each have been charged with one count of child endangerment resulting in death. Little lives in the 900 block of Melvin Avenue where the boy shot himself. Straughter lives in the 1800 block of Meadow Trails Drive in unincorporated St. Louis County. The charges against the couple say Little and Straughter were lying in bed with Khori at Little's home in the city's Baden neighborhood about 1 p.m. when the boy crawled off the bed and left the room. A few minutes later, charges said, Little heard a gunshot and found Khori slumped over in a pool of blood. Little told police that her boyfriend Straughter had put a gun on a television stand the night before and that the gun would have been within Khori's reach, charges said. She also said she knew the gun was there and that neither she nor Straughter moved it. After the shooting, Khori's grandfather, Lee Little, said he held Khori in his arms in the police SUV as an officer drove them toward the hospital and met up with an ambulance. "I kept telling him to breathe, and he would take a breath," Little said. "I said, 'Khori, if you hear me, hug me.' He wrapped his arm around me and he took a breath -- and he never took another one."