From the Columbus Dispatch:

Intruders pay price for home invasion
Springfield woman shoots both, killing 1

Thursday, December 14, 2006
Holly Zachariah
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH


Colin Jenkins' girlfriend was already in bed Tuesday night, and he was just about to join her when the doorbell started to ring incessantly. When Jenkins opened the door, a man forced his way inside the rural Springfield home. Within minutes, one robbery suspect was dead and another critically wounded.
Jenkins' girlfriend had shot them both.

Clark County Sheriff Gene Kelly called the late-night home invasion "an apparent horrible attack on innocent victims." He said that although the case will be presented to a grand jury, he expects no charges against the shooter, 19-year-old Megan Stapleton.

"There is no reason to believe this was anything but random, and this young couple was defending themselves," Kelly said. He said the couple has lived in the house since October. Stapleton is a waitress at two restaurants, and Jenkins, also 19, works in construction.

Killed was 29-year-old Jonathan L. Carson, a former basketball star at Springfield South High School who played the 1997-98 season with the University of Cincinnati Bearcats, averaging 3.1 points in 17 games.

Carson had run-ins with the law in recent years, Kelly said, and had a previous felony conviction for receiving stolen property. Wounded was Dow R. Huffman, a 23-year-old from West Liberty in Logan County. He was wanted for failing to appear in court on a previous charge. He was listed last night in critical condition at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton.

The drama began just after 10 p.m. when a neighbor spotted a suspicious car. There are only five houses on Darnell Drive, part of an upscale neighborhood north of the Upper Valley Mall in western Clark County. Georgianna Sarven and her husband have lived in one of them for 28 years.

Their neighbor went to their house and said she was afraid to go home because a strange car was parked on the street with its lights off and a man inside.

The Sarvens accompanied her to her home and were inside checking her house for trouble when they heard commotion across the road.

"Then, all hell broke loose," Mrs. Sarven said. "We saw the boy that lives there outside waving his arms, flagging down police, and someone else said there was a dead body on the porch."

Kelly recounts the night's events like this:

Jenkins opened his door about 10:30 p.m., and Huffman, armed with two guns, muscled his way in. The two fought, and Jenkins yelled to his girlfriend for help.

She left her bedroom, and Huffman stalked her down the hallway toward a back room. When she emerged, she had a 9 mm handgun and Huffman was right in front of her. She fired multiple times, and he went down.

She then ran to the living room and found a masked Carson fighting with Jenkins on the floor. She fired several times, apparently grazing her boyfriend in the back and hitting Carson once in the back.

Carson got up, stumbled onto the front porch and fell dead. A handgun was found near his body. Jenkins was treated for his injuries at a local hospital, Kelly said. Stapleton was shaken but unharmed.

Kelly said the car that neighbors saw, a large green vehicle with a damaged door, likely was a getaway vehicle. He said deputies are searching for the driver.


hzachariah@dispatch.com



Copyright © 2006, The Columbus Dispatch

I read about a home invasion the other day where the home owner grabbed up a decorative sabre hang on the wall, took a swing at the assailant cutting off the trigger finger of his right hand, the assailant then fled but the police were able to track him down because he left a finger print...I mean a finger.

This was a shock and then again it wasn't. Sad story, the kid's dad was something else.

Ex-boyfriend kicks in door, new boyfriend kills him

Erik Richter, armed with a loaded gun, broke into his ex-girlfriend's Wright County apartment after having threatened her. Samantha Simons' current boyfriend, Eric Cegon, shot him.

By Jim Adams, Star Tribune


The crashing back door snapped Eric Cegon and his girlfriend awake in her apartment. Fear grew as they heard feet rapidly climbing the stairs to their barricaded bedroom door about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Cegon, 30, grabbed the shotgun next to their bed and sat up, hoping the locked door would hold. He said he knew the intruder was the man who had threatened his life and held a knife to his girlfriend a week earlier.

The girlfriend, Samantha Simons, covered up her 2-year-old son and screamed as her ex-boyfriend kicked in the door, knocking over the small dresser lodged against it.

"I knew if that door came open what I would do," Cegon said Thursday. He fired the 12-gauge shotgun he had borrowed from a friend two weeks before to protect himself. The blast knocked Erik A. Richter, 35, to the floor.

A loaded gun fell from his hand.

"You killed me," the couple recall Richter saying.

Cegon squeezed the trigger again.

"I shot him again to make sure he didn't get up," Cegon said. "I'll never forget the smell."

Simons, 21, said that Cegon had to do it or that Richter "would have killed us all."

His deadly break-in was the second time he had violated a court order not to contact his former girlfriend, Simons, or her new boyfriend, Cegon. Richter was scheduled to appear in court Wednesday on a terroristic threats charge for repeatedly threatening to kill Cegon since Nov. 4, when he broke Cegon's vehicle's windows, court records said. Richter is the father of Simons' son.

Cegon and Simons were questioned but not arrested, said Lt. Todd Hoffman of the Wright County Sheriff's Office.

County Attorney Thomas Kelly said that a week before Richter died, he threatened Simons with a kitchen knife and said he would kill Cegon. Richter was charged with assault in that case.

State law allows a person to defend himself or others in a home if the person believes he or she faces an imminent threat of great bodily harm or death, Kelly said. He said he will decide whether any charges are warranted against Cegon after the investigation is over and an autopsy done on Richter, who did not fire his handgun.

Cegon "may very well have been justified in taking another one's life," Kelly said. He added that Richter told Simons that he "refused to let her go, and said if he couldn't have her, nobody would."

Kelly said he wasn't aware of any drugs or alcohol being involved in Wednesday's altercation. He noted that Richter, of Watertown, was sentenced to four years in prison for a methamphetamine conviction in 1998.

On Thursday, Cegon and Simons recounted the harrowing shooting as they sat in her mother's townhouse in Rockford. Simons' mother, Sarah Wickstrom, kept an eye on her 2-year-old grandson, Jackson, who had just come inside after splashing in puddles. His trucks and toys were piled nearby under a Christmas garland of blue tinsel.

The couple said they had barricaded their bedroom door at night for the last week, expecting Richter to make good on his threats to kill Cegon. Simons said Richter had showed her a sawed-off shotgun with a special grip that he planned to use.

They expected him Tuesday night because he had a court date Wednesday on the terroristic threats made while he banged on the doors and windows of Cegon's parents' home in Rockford, where the couple were staying on Nov. 4.

The county attorney said Richter had posted $10,000 bail on the threats charge and apparently violated a condition of his release by threatening Simons with a knife Dec 6. A warrant had been issued for his arrest after that incident, Kelly said.

A judge could have sent Richter to jail for that release violation, and Simons said Richter didn't want to go back.

Cegon said that he had never used a gun before but that he decided to borrow a shotgun two weeks ago from a friend who showed him how to use it. He said he had met Richter while working at a feed elevator. Cegon said it felt like Richter had been hunting him for the past month.

After the predawn shooting, Cegon sat in fear, disbelief and shock. He said it happened less than a minute after they heard the back door kicked in, ripping off the security chain. He said he shot Richter in the chest from about 5 feet. He continued to hold the gun on him while handing the phone to Simons to call 911.

"I was crying, and they said to calm down," Simons recalled of the call. "I said my ex-boyfriend broke into the house and we shot him."

Cegon put the shotgun back in its case and went to let police into the house in the 8800 block of Walnut Place.

"We didn't want any problems with him," Cegon said. "I didn't do it. He did it to himself."

He said he won't keep a gun in his home anymore.

"I never had one. I never hunted. I never wanted one," he said, as Simons held his hand. She said she has had nightmares and went to see a doctor about sleeping medicine Thursday. She said that she won't return to her apartment and that she has given notice to the landlord.

Simons said her son woke up during the shooting and asked for a bottle. She hopes he doesn't remember the night his father died.

"I covered his eyes, so he didn't see. I hope he doesn't remember any of this," she said. "It's not going to be a good Christmas."

Added Wickstrom, her mother: "I just thank God that my daughter and my grandson are still here."

That's not the Packer's defensive lineman, is it?

I'll leave it for others to ridicule the meager efforts at stopping opposing rushers and how it would relate to his struggle with the intruders.

A few years ago an older Asian man was standing on a street corner in L.A. waiting for the light to change. A man came up to him, put a gun to his chest, and demanded his money. He said it was inside his coat pocket. Instead he pulled out a small pistol and shot the guy right through his eye. No permit for the concealed weapon so he was supposed to pay a fine, but the judged dropped all charges.

There is a place in the world for the 2nd Amendment. Anyone remember Stephen? He and I had a great conversation on a thread sometime last year. I had always had mixed feeling about weapons, but he made me a real believer in the 2nd. While I'll never have guns in my house- not my thing- I have no problem with those who chose to exercise their Constitutional right in a responsible way.

It's the irresponsible ones that I worry about...

Exactly. Of course, in our profession, we meet enough of the irresponsible ones that I worry.

The advantage of having a fully functional Second Amendment, is that those that choose to exercise their right can, and those don't feel the need are not forced to.

Living out here in the middle of no where I would not have my family out here if I didn't have a gun to protect them.

About a year and a half ago I think I told y'all about my barn getting broke into while we were gone to church, the thieves got off with over $10,000 worth of farm equipment.

Meth addicts are rampart out here in the country, if a farmer leaves a liquid fertilizer tank out in their field over night the meth addicts swarm to it like bees to honey. The fellow farming the place a mile down the road left an empty fertilizer tank out in his field as bait to keep them away from his house and barns. When he sees them heading down the road to where he left the tank he calls the sheriff.

About a month after my barn was burglarized I caught a fellow prowling the place. If I'd had my cell phone on me I'd a called the sheriff but given the choice of shooting him or running him off I choose the later. I think he believed I was fixing to kill him though because the poor SOB wet his pants. I guess staring done the business end of my 12 gauge pump scared him a bit.

I switched to a 20 guage and birdshot last year. I will save the Mini-14 for outdoors.....

I live in a townhouse that is nice, on the edge of a not so nice part of town.
It did get very bad for a while but the HPD has been very present, and they have rounded up
most of the bad apples from Katrina.

While our forefather's intent of the Second Amendment had a Para-military connotation, the prime reason for it today is the defense of home and hearth from those that would live outside of the law.
While a tyrannical government should always be a concern, it is not the prime reason for owning guns today.