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A Montana homeowner was sentenced Thursday to 70 years in prison, with no parole for at least 20 years, in the shotgun killing of a German exchange student who was trespassing in his garage.
District Judge Ed McLean said Markus Kaarma was hunting, not safeguarding his home when he shot 17-year-old Diren Dede early one April morning.
"Here you have a 12-gauge shotgun, not to protect your family but to go after someone," the judge told Kaarma. "And go after someone you did."
A Missoula jury convicted Kaarma, 30, of deliberate homicide in the case that caused an outcry in Germany and brought scrutiny to Montana's law allowing the use of deadly force in some situations to protect home and family. Kaarma faced between 10 to 100 years in prison.
I'm in no way disagreeing with the murder conviction here, but am curious as to what the victim was doing in the shooters garage. It didn't say anything about that in the article.
I'm in no way disagreeing with the murder conviction here, but am curious as to what the victim was doing in the shooters garage. It didn't say anything about that in the article.
If memory serves me, the guy was stealing things from the garage.
The big difference here, once again running off memory, was that the homeowner was laying in wait. The homeowner left the garage open with valuable sitting out while he was with his gun in the dark. When the thief (sorry, but that's what he was) came in the garage to steal, the homeowner, who saw him approaching and going in, opened fire. The homeowner never told him "freeze" or "don't move" or anything like that.
The homeowner's garage had been stolen from several times in the past, it was probably the same guy.
If the homeowner had heard something in the garage, came out to investigate and shot him because he was in fear, that would be different. But he watched this young guy who was by himself wander up and then just blasted away once he was in the trap.
Some people might still argue that the homeowner was within his rights, but I just don't see what happened as being in the spirit of the laws that should protect the homeowner.
Outstanding! That murdering sociopath is basically going to spend the rest of his life in prison. Guaranteed to do 20 years, and a cowardly punk like him probably won't live through 20 years of hard time.
And yeah, according to news reports at the time, the kid was trying to steal alcohol. Stupid of him, and obviously wrong. But this was clearly a case of coldblooded murder - the homeowner bragged to numerous people before the killing that he'd been staying up nights hoping to kill a burglar, and that he'd deliberately set a trap for burglars, and the forensic evidence showed that he staked the victim across the length of the garage and fired numerous shots before finally scoring on the head shot. A just verdict, and appropriate sentence.
The Turkish kid is just as guilty for trespassing and attempting to steal. The Kaarma guy would've had no one to aim at if these scumbags never had the intent of committing a crime inside his property. The guy should've shot him in the leg, called the cops and called it a day. Both are dumbasses and I'm glad they'll never see the streets again.
Well, it was fun while it lasted, but I guess it was just a matter of time before someone showed up to say that a teenager sneaking into a garage to steal beer deserves to die. But you know, if you're gonna spout off with the Rambo crap, you should probably take a few minutes to... you know... actually read the article, so you know what you're talking about. Because it's pretty clear you have only a vague idea of what happened.
Medical marijuana is legal in Montana, and many pot smokers have turned their garages into comfortable places to smoke pot outside the house. Missoula has a lot of older homes with single and/or detached garages that have been converted to 'man caves' with a heater, fridge, couches and TV, and local teens have been stealing pot and liquor from them, but nothing else.
It's been going on for quite a while now. Most of the kids are younger teens, but some are college kids, as the U of Montana is in Missoula.
All it takes are a couple of $4.00 locks to keep them out. The shooter was well known around town for his violent talk, and wasn't well liked. He bragged about baiting his garage before the German exchange student ever entered it to a barber a few days before the shooting, so he showed full intention of shooting some kid.
What surprised me was there was never a change of venue asked. The townspeople were really mad about the incident. The perp made the bait very tempting; the yard lights were out, but the garage lights were on, and the open purse had a bottle of booze sticking halfway out of the purse. The garage door was up high enough that a person had to crouch to get under it, but not by much.
"baiting" "luring" what a bunch of bull. Even if I saw 10 plates of gold inside someone's garage, I wouldn't dare try to steal any, as I have no idea what sort of lunatic is waiting for me inside, let alone the fact that it's simply illegal.
The idiot of a kid got shot up for committing a crime. He'd be stealing even to this day if Kaarma hadn't put a bullet into his head. Rest in P1ss.
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