A 74-year-old Maryland man has been charged in the fatal shooting of a 39-year-old woman whom he said he mistakenly identified as a deer while hunting in Delaware.

Police said Walter Moorhead was hunting from a camouflaged ground blind when he fired his rifle at what he believed was a deer, striking Santos Maria Chilel Soto.

Chilel Soto was walking through an open field with a man and two children when she was shot and later died at a hospital.

Moorhead was charged with manslaughter, reckless endangerment and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, NBC News has reported.

He was released on $43,000 cash bond, and it was not immediately known whether he had retained an attorney.