I was watching Dateline and saw the story about Byron Smith, a Minnesota man who shot and killed two teenage criminals after they broke into his home. He told police his home had been broken into several times before, so he was simply defending his himself:
Prior to the incident, Byron Smith had been burglarized at least half a dozen times over the past few months. Among the items stolen were thousands of dollars in cash, the watch his father had received after spending nearly a year as a POW in World War II, medals and ribbons Smith had earned in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, several firearms, and jewelry.
Unfortunately, that’s not the way how it went down. He had basically choreographed the killings, first by making the teens think he wasn’t home. When they broke in and came down the stairs, he smoked the dude first, then the girl about 10 minutes later. While he despised the male, it’s obvious he hated the girl, by shooting her six times including in the face:
What do you think? As a homeowner, he was spot on by defending his castle (Castle Doctrine). As a human, smoking them after the threat was gone … while the girl was down, he shot her in the left eye … while commenting that he was gonna kill her:
In police interviews Smith acknowledged “firing more shots than I needed to” and that he fired “a good clean finishing shot” into Kifer’s head.
I understand shooting them, but not killing them. He had mentioned earlier in the audio tape “in the left eye”, which meant he had planned it. Not too hard to outsmart some dimwitted teenagers. No one in the Dateline story mentioned where the teenagers parents were. Probably in jail or high on crystal meth. Even if they aren’t, that’s an appropriate guess.
That’s why a shotgun is the prime weapon for home defense. He wouldn’t have needed multiple shots to end it. Recording it didn’t make a whole lot of sense, either.
Then again, they might have stolen his shotgun in a previous burglary. Got it, my fault. If you’ve ever had something stolen from you, you have some level of understanding what the guy did.
