Authorities in Indiana are considering possible criminal charges against a homeowner who allegedly fatally shot a female after she accidentally arrived to the incorrect address where she believed assigned to clean a home.
Police discovered Maria Florinda Rios Perez De Velasquez, aged 32, dead just before 7am at the entrance of a home in a suburban town, an area of about 10,000 people near Indianapolis.
She was part of a cleaning team that had gone to the incorrect house, according to police in an official release.
Officials did not publicly identified the shooter, but police submitted the results from the investigation to Kent Eastwood, the local district attorney, on Friday.
This case will highlight Indiana’s self-defense statutes, which allow a person to use lethal force to prevent what they reasonably believe is an illegal entry into their home.
But the killing has stunned the community. The victim’s spouse, her husband, stated to local media that he was standing with her at the home’s entrance but didn’t realize she had been shot until she collapsed into his arms, injured. On a fundraising page, her sibling said that she was a parent to four children.
A majority of US states have comparable statutes like Indiana’s in place, as reported by the national legislative research group.
In comparable incidents in other states, prosecutors have filed criminal charges against people who used a firearm outside their residences, including a guilty plea by an elderly man who shot Ralph Yarl when the teen came to his door by mistake. In another state, a man was convicted of homicide for killing a woman inside a car who entered his property in error.
The incident underscores ongoing debates surrounding stand-your-ground statutes and their application in everyday situations.
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