https://soundcloud.com/nydailynews/warning-graphic-audio-of-byron-smith-killing-two-teens-who-tried-to-rob-him
This is the logical result of years of gun porn, of Fox News paranoia, of sick Dirty Harry fantasies. I noticed years ago, from listening to drunken assholes in bars, that a hefty percentage of them truly believe that America equates to being able to do whatever you want to anyone who pisses you off:
In another case, just concluded, Byron Smith of Little Falls, Minnesota, was convicted of premeditated murder Tuesday after claiming self-defense in a somewhat similar situation — his home had been burglarized, so in 2012, he decided to set a trap and kill him a burglar, a neighbor girl he believed responsible for the break-in. So he made his house look vacant by parking his truck away from the driveway, then waited in his basement with snacks, his guns, and a novel, because even when you’re staking out your own home to kill a teenager, you need some entertainment. He even had a tarp ready in the basement to wrap the intruder’s body in — smart fellow, thinking ahead like that. He also set up an audio recorder to capture all the excitement.
And so, as it turns out, two teenagers, 18-year-old Haile Kifer and 17-year-old Nick Brady, broke into his house through a window, and eventually made their way down to his basement, where he shot them dead:
Brady descended the basement stairs first, and Smith shot him three times, saying “You’re dead.” He dragged the body to another room and waited until Kifer followed, and he shot her. “You’re dying,” he told her, according to the audio recording.
After killing the teens, Smith also said, on the recording, “I don’t see them as human. I see them as vermin.” No, he doesn’t seem nice at all.
The jury didn’t seem convinced by Smith’s defense that he was in fear for his life in the little sniper’s nest that he’d set up, and sentenced him to life in prison without parole. His attorney, Steve Meshbesher, said that he plans to appeal, since the judge hadn’t allowed the introduction of evidence that the teens had been involved in previous burglaries in the area, on the grounds that Smith could not have known anything about his targets’ history at the time he was filling them with holes. The prosecutors said that protecting yourself is one thing, but setting up a shooting gallery is quite another. It’s like these prosecutors think there are limits to the Second Amendment, which guarantees the right to kill people who piss you off.
H/t to Attorney Shawn Sukumar.
You certainly have to question this guys judgment. But…….. Do you have a right to protect your home? This one’s going to the Supreme Court for a ruling. Life without parole? That is excessive.
This guy committed pre-meditated murder and should be in prison for life without parole.
It doesn’t sound like the teens were armed. He was NOT in fear for his life – he just wanted to kill a young girl. He must have figured the boy was a bonus. Those kids did not deserve to die for what may have only been youthful indescretion. He could have held them and turned them over to police.
Well he had been burgled before. If there is a patter and the police do nothing. Like Imhotep says, does he have the right to shoot invaders or not. Becuse he wouldn’t on those grounds have the right to shoot a bunch of SWAT guys who got the address wrong, then, would he?
pattern
SWAT teams do not sneak through windows when entering your home. They make one hell of a racket and announce themselves. This guy needs to spend some time thinking about how bad his judgment was, but none of us knows what was going on in his mind. Really. Life without parole is excessive. 10 years might be good. While we’re on the subject this country should immediately free half the people we have in jail today and get rid of the death penalty.
I know someone whose grandparents were killed by a couple of dumb teenage druggies who broke into their rural home like these did. Those kids were trash, full stop. So were these two Minnesota kids, and good riddance to them both.
The killer was creepy, and he should have called the cops after the first one he shot/killed, and called an ambulance for the one he didn’t kill with the first shot(s). Those kids earned the first incapacitating bullets they got whether it killed them or not, that’s justifiable homicide. But the following execution of the girl was 1st degree murder.
In rural parts of this country, you can pretty much count on most of the homes being armed, sometimes to the hilt. If you are going to break into them, be fucking prepared to die.
PS, as a corrollary to my last sentence, with all those guns lying around, anyone in those parts of the country has to assume that a burglar will be looking for their guns and be prepared to used them against the owners. So if you’ve got guns in the house and someone breaks in, you most likely know that you need to use lethal force.
PPS, I think characterizing breaking and entering and burglary as merely another form of pissing someone off is dismissive in the extreme. When I was a kid and we went on our first vacation in 4 years, some assholes broke in and stole our new color TV (this was our first one and last one for several more years, and this was the late seventies when most people had had them for 10 years or more already). Unless it has happened to you, you can’t know the sense of violation involved with strangers coming into your home and helping themselves to everything you have worked for for years. This dismissive attitude to these kids’ CRIMES and their impact on their victims is really offensive. Like the the nasty ugly lonely old codger should just shrug it off when entitled mindless little shits (ooh, sorry, nicelynicley, these cute little indiscreet youths) like these want to help themselves you anything you own just to score a few bucks worth of nyquil.
I’ve been burglarized — twice. And it is an awful feeling. But I’d never think of killing someone over some stuff.