Alfredo Simon now says the shooting was accidental:

The chief prosecutor for Puerto Plata province, Victor Mueses, told reporters that, based on information gleaned from Simon’s conversation with authorities, the incident appeared to be a case of involuntary manslaughter, a charge that, if proven, could lead to a sentence of up to two years in prison.

“The version that we have is that there was a dispute between two women and he tried to dissolve it, fired a shot that ended up wounding a young person in the arm and that same bullet lodged in the chest of the deceased,” Mueses told the Associated Press. He added that he planned to ask a judge to impose on Simon three months of preventive detention while the case is pending.

One of Simon’s lawyers, Carlos Olivares, gave a different account of the incident, saying his client had been firing random, celebratory shots with a group of local men in a park in the coastal town of Luperon. He said Simon could not have fired the fatal shot because he was firing into the air and Castillo Almonte — who the lawyer said was the pitcher’s cousin — was shot in the chest. “We are giving the weapon so that the national police can do the pertinent ballistics tests,” Olivares said.

We’ll see what the investigation uncovers.