Posted on 11/27/2012 7:59:37 AM PST by Uncle Chip
LITTLE FALLS, MINN. - Insisting the case crosses the line from self-defense to a cold-blooded double execution, Morrison County authorities filed second-degree murder charges Monday against a 64-year-old man who killed two teenage cousins after they'd broken into his home on Thanksgiving.
This woodsy central Minnesota town of 8,000 was jolted as the gruesome details spilled out in a criminal complaint, alleging Byron David Smith put a handgun under the chin of wounded and gasping 18-year-old Haile Kifer for what he told police was a "good clean finishing shot."
Smith, who according to a friend and a relative had endured previous break-ins, sat shackled in an orange jail jumpsuit as County Attorney Brian Middendorf accused him of "cold-blooded murder of two teenagers under circumstances that are appalling and far beyond any self-defense claim."
Sheriff Michel Wetzel said Monday that he believes the teenagers were committing a burglary but said Smith's reaction went beyond legal protections of Minnesota law that allows crime victims to use reasonable force to protect themselves and their property during a felony.
"We understand and respect that right exists, but what happened in this case went further," Wetzel said. "The law doesn't permit you to execute somebody when there's no possible way the crime can continue."
And the law requires people to notify police, said Wetzel, who learned about the shooting from a neighbor the next day. The sheriff said the reason Smith gave for never calling police was "it was Thanksgiving and he didn't want to bother us on a holiday."
Hamline University School of Law professor Joseph Olson, who has studied self-defense laws, noted that the number of Smith's shots will make it difficult for him to claim self-defense in court.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Had they not broken in to his house, they'd still be alive.
I would have even no-billed Ed Gein under such circumstances.
Don't be silly. He's the guy who flew over Atlanta.
Yup. Dead wholesome, live for the moment Yutes tell no tales.
Sounds like he was using .22 rimfire stuff. Undergunned I would speculate. Take a couple of .45 ACP’s and then let’s hear ya laugh.
He was known as "The Lone Beagle".
However, the shooter in this case is in serious trouble and from what I've read, rightly so. If it's true, a 'finishing shot' goes quite far beyond any reasonable definition of self-defense.
Chuck actually didn’t make the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic. That was done by John Alcock and Arthur Whitten. The key word is “SOLO”.
Red Solo cup. I fill you up.
So, what should have happened to the drug-addict thieves?
Tea and crumpets? Maybe a nice warm bath with some hot cocoa? Maybe they should have chosen a different home with an elderly guy that wasn’t armed that they could have beaten to death and THEN taken all his stuff...
Maybe that would have fit your delicate sensibilities better.
They were bringing him turkey dinner, glad tidings of great joy, and Skittles.
The guy would've gotten off without charge if the teens had been gunned down while breaking in. The fact that the guy had been robbed before and was under high stress will, I suspect, play a major role in his defense.
A kid I knew from my high school days once told me that he got an adrenaline rush by burgling homes. I told him he should take up a safer sport like alligator wrestling because he could end up dead. Unfortunately for him, that is exactly what happened not long afterward.
This reminds me of the case of the pharmacist who was being robbed a couple of years ago. He shot one of the robbers and put him down. He then slowly walked out from behind the counter, stood over the bleedindg, incapacitated man’s body and cooly emptied the rest of his gun’s magazine into the defensless man. It was all captured on security video. Needless to say, those prosecutor’s didn’t buy a self defense claim either.
Yep. Minnesota has a long history of coddling criminals and punishing those who attempt to defend themselves. Especially if you do it "wrong". "Wrong" being whatever hyperbole and trial by public opinion/lynching the DA and the Red Star can drum up.
In the basement he’d retreated to, after breaking in to his home, possibly after having robbed him before...
Yeah. Misunderstood carolers lured to their deaths by a criminal mastermind for sure...
It’s a case like this that the left will use to take the rights of responsible gun owners away.
They came in through a bedroom window (presumably on the second floor). The shots were in the basement. It is conceivable that the sound was sufficiently muffled by distance and intervening ceilings that it didn't register to her that they were shots.
The guy is nuts.
Here’s a tip to the future Kifer’s of the world. Bad things can happen when you break the law.
I think it was more than likely the gunshot under the chin that accomplished that.
Since they were both in high school, 17 and 18, there should be some recent school pictures. Actually these pictures of them look like they are about 17/18.
They have no problem just making it up. “Truth” and “facts” are all relative for the hoplophobes and tyrant-wannabes.
sometimes, you can do BOTH:
“Alligators found at scene of suspected drug shooting “
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2963404/posts
“...at least they died doing what they loved.”
He certainly was...
Should have never said anything to the police other than, “I retreated to the basement, I was in fear for my life, I will cooperate fully after I have talked with my lawyer...”
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