WAKE FOREST — A 12-year-old boy from Tarboro died Friday morning in what Wake County sheriff’s deputies said appeared to be “a tragic hunting accident” at a home on Bent Road, just outside federally owned land on the east shore of Falls Lake.

James Lee Parker of 10 Jeremy Lane was shot, the sheriff’s office said.

“This appears to be a very tragic hunting accident,” Wake Sheriff Donnie Harrison said, but investigators were working Friday to establish exactly what happened.

Deputies and fire and EMS workers were sent to 1617 Bent Road shortly before 8 a.m. for a report of someone having been shot.

Three people, aged 16, 20 and 37, were with Parker at the house, sheriff’s spokeswoman Phyllis Stephens said.

The sheriff’s office did not disclose their names or their relationship to Parker.

Bent Road winds through woods and dead-ends near the shore of the lake west of Bud Morris Road in northern Wake County.