Free Republic

A teen who was with a German exchange student the night he was fatally shot in a Montana garage testified at the homeowner’s murder trial that his friend thought burglarizing garages was a game and didn’t know he could get shot. Robby Pazmino told jurors Tuesday that he and Diren Dede went for a walk late April 26 when they noticed Markus Kaarma’s garage door partially open. Pazmino says he asked Dede if he was “going there.” Dede didn’t respond, so Pazmino says he waited down the street. He testified that he heard the first shot and started running. Pazmino...

District Judge Ed McLean has denied a motion to change the trial venue for Markus Kaarma, the Missoula man accused of fatally shooting a German exchange student in his garage last April. In a 208-page motion to move the trial, Kaarma’s attorneys argued that local media reports have tainted Missoula’s jury pool by painting Kaarma as a “cold-blooded killer.” Katie Lacny, who filed the motion, argued her 30-year-old client has been held captive in his Grant Creek home and received death threats as the media “aroused sympathies and created a community outcry against” him. “The pretrial publicity has stirred up...

MISSOULA, Mont. - A Montana man accused of fatally shooting a German exchange student in his garage pleaded not guilty to murder Wednesday, Reuters reports. Last month, 29-year-old Markus Kaarma, of Missoula, allegedly shot and killed 17-year-old Diren Dede, of Hamburg, Germany, after the teen broke into his garage. The former U.S. Forest Service firefighter has been charged with deliberate homicide, according to the news agency.

The attorney for a Montana man charged in the death of a 17-year-old German exchange student says the teen and a companion had broken into homeowners’ garages three of four times before the shooting. Paul Ryan represents Markus Kaarma, who is charged with deliberate homicide in the April 27 slaying of Diren Dede in Missoula. […] Ryan says the Ecuadorian student told police the boys started “garage hopping” after learning about the practice from other students at their high school. …

Search warrant: Missoula man may have been high when German student shot Markus Kaarma may have been under the influence of marijuana when he shot and killed German exchange student Diren Dede, according to a search warrant requested by Missoula police. The search warrant also indicates that during previous burglaries of the Missoula home, unknown suspects had taken all the marijuana and marijuana pipes out of the garage. Kaarma, 29, is charged with deliberate homicide for the shooting of the foreign exchange student, who was finishing his junior year abroad at Big Sky High School. According to the affidavit, Kaarma...

A Montana couple frustrated by recent thefts allegedly set a trap for potential burglars—and upon hearing a would-be intruder after midnight on Sunday, the husband fired four shots into the darkness, he says. Now, Markus Kaarma of Missoula has been charged in the death of German exchange student Diren Dede, 17, who was hit by bullets in the head and arm, the AP reports. The couple had set up sensors and cameras around their garage, whose door they left open; Kaarma's wife, Janelle Pflager, left her purse there "so they would take it," she said, per court documents. She reportedly...