According to a press release from the local police in the United States, on Wednesday, before 7 a.m., the body of 32-year-old Maria Florinda Rios Perez was found on the porch of a residence in Whitestown, a suburb of Indianapolis, Indiana, with a population of about 10,000.
The press release stated that she was an employee of a cleaning crew at the time and had mistakenly found the wrong address.
Perez’s husband, Mauricio Velazquez, told WRTV television station in Indianapolis that he and his wife had been working as house cleaners for seven months. He recalled that on Wednesday morning, while they were standing at the front door of a house, his wife suddenly collapsed in his arms, bleeding profusely, and that’s when he realized she had been shot.
Authorities announced on Friday that Perez was from Indianapolis.
Her brother, in a fundraising page, mentioned that Perez was a mother of four children, and the family plans to transport her body back to Guatemala for burial.
The identity of the shooter has not been disclosed by the authorities.
The investigation results were handed over to Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood on Friday afternoon.
Eastwood stated that filing charges is not easy in this case due to the direct involvement of Indiana’s “Castle Doctrine.”
This doctrine is an exception to the general self-defense rules in certain jurisdictions, where the usual self-defense rules often require individuals to retreat if they can do so safely.
However, the “Castle Doctrine” allows individuals the right to use force (including lethal force) for self-defense or to protect others within their own residence, without the obligation of retreating. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 31 states in the U.S. have enacted similar laws.
There have been cases where charges were successfully brought against individuals.
An 86-year-old man pleaded guilty to shooting and killing a black teenager who mistakenly entered his home. In New York, a man was convicted of second-degree murder for shooting and killing a woman who mistakenly drove into his driveway.
Eastwood emphasized the need to carefully examine the investigators’ findings to understand what led to the shooting incident, indicating that he will scrutinize any witness recordings and doorbell surveillance footage “second by second.”
He stated, “You need to understand all the details to comprehend what happened and what is reasonable. In today’s world, one of the most difficult things is to reach a consensus on what is considered reasonable, and these are the issues we, as prosecutors, must confront.”
(This article references reporting from the Associated Press)