In Bronx Arrow Case, Turning Up Leads and Much Puzzlement

“The investigative premise is that it was an accident,” Mr. Kelly said.

At 2 p.m. on Sunday, Ms. Brown, of Yonkers, had driven to the nursing home, on Independence Avenue, to drop off a friend who lives there. She was opening the passenger’s door of her red Kia Sorento when she was struck by the arrow, the police said. The arrow hit her in a downward path and penetrated a couple of inches into her body.

“I felt this sharp pain,” Ms. Brown said on Monday. “I looked down and there was an arrow protruding from my belly. I was going to pull it out but when I pulled on it a little bit, I felt it was embedded deep inside of me. I was afraid I would bleed uncontrollably — I thought I better leave it until I was at the hospital.”

On Monday, the police said the arrow had been identified as a Blackhawk 4000 ACA, a 30 ½-inch-long, all-carbon arrow. Its shaft was black and two of its three feathers were still affixed to it, one of them yellow and the other white. The police said the arrow’s tip seemed to be for target-shooting.

Investigators said they believed the arrow was shot from the west and possibly from the rooftop of a nearby building.

But arrows are not marked with serial numbers and are not easily traceable, said Al Lizzio, a competitive archer whose wife, Martha, owns Queens Archery Supplies in Flushing. He said there were few places in the city to buy arrows. But he added that arrows are often sold “out of garages and in basements” and that they could be ordered over the Internet.

The police are checking with Web sites and with sporting goods stores that are authorized distributors of the Blackhawk 4000.

via In Bronx Arrow Case, Turning Up Leads and Much Puzzlement - NYTimes.com.