Charges: Boy, 3, found gun and fatally shot himself in Hinckley home after being sent upstairs alone

Manslaughter and other charges filed Monday against a father allege that he sent his 3-year-old son upstairs alone to watch a video in a bedroom where the toddler found a loaded gun sitting on an unlocked safe and fatally shot himself in the head in their Hinckley, Minn., home.

Roy D. Pauza-Moore, 26, was charged in Pine County District Court with second-degree manslaughter, child endangerment based on access to a firearm and negligent storage of a firearm in connection with the death on Aug. 8 of 3-year-old Thomas Pauza-Moore. He died three weeks shy of his 4th birthday.

Pauza-Moore remains jailed in lieu of $50,000 bail ahead of a court hearing on Nov. 7. Court records do not list an attorney for him.

"Thomas was a bright, cheerful, strong-willed, and determined kid," the boy's online obituary read. "He enjoyed anything to do with water, doing various activities especially anything outdoors. He was a wonderful big brother to Clara or "sissy" as he always called her."

According to the criminal complaint:

Pauza-Moore reported the shooting to 911 at 9:07 p.m. while his roommate, Joseph Gebhart, tended to Thomas on the father's bed. The boy was pronounced dead at the scene 19 minutes later.

Law enforcement officers saw an empty holster and a cellphone between the bed and one wall, and a semiautomatic pistol sitting atop an unlocked gun safe. A 9-millimeter shell casing was on the floor, the same caliber as the handgun.

The gunshot sent Pauza-Moore and his roommate to the bedroom, where they saw the boy bleeding on the floor.

Pauza-Moore said "the gun had been in a holster on the top part of the safe," the charges read. "He said the gun did not have any safety mechanisms on it."

Along with the handgun, law enforcement located in Pauza-Moore's bedroom closet an unloaded AR-15 style rifle and a pump-action shotgun that was loaded.

"The closet door was unlocked and open," the charges noted. "The firearms were at floor level and accessible to the child. Law enforcement further located three handguns and two rifles in [the roommate's] room."

The boy's mother, Kristin Pauza-Moore, told law enforcement that she moved out of the home on June 26, when she and Roy Pauza-Moore decided to separate. Court records show they filed for divorce on Aug. 4.