Lebanon, industry — An indiana homeowner is accused of The house cleaner was killed who accidentally arrived at his front door was charged with first-degree murder Monday in a case that could test the limits of stand-your-ground laws.
Kurt Andersen, 62, could face 10 to 30 years in prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted. He was being held in the Boone County Jail awaiting his preliminary court hearing.
Officers found Maria Florinda Rios Perez de Velasquez, 32, dead on the front porch of a home in Whitestown, a suburb of Indianapolis, on November 5. Authorities said the Guatemalan immigrant was part of the cleaning crew that… He went to the wrong house Before 7 am
Andersen shot her through the front door without warning about a minute after hearing someone try to open the door, according to the probable cause statement.
Rios’ husband told the media that he was with her on the balcony. He did not realize that she had been shot until she fell into his arms, bleeding. On one fundraising page, her brother described Rios as a mother of four children.
Indiana is one of 31 states with a standing law that allows homeowners to use deadly force to stop anyone they believe is trying to illegally enter their residence. But police said there was no evidence that Rios entered the home before she was shot.
Andersen’s attorney, Jay Relford, posted a statement on X saying he was disappointed that prosecutors charged his client. He said Andersen had every reason to believe his actions were justified and that the Stand Your Ground law clearly protected him.
“Mr. Andersen’s actions must be evaluated based on the circumstances he perceived,” Relford said in the statement.
Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood told reporters at a news conference that the decision to charge Andersen was not difficult. Eastwood said the standing protections did not apply because Andersen lacked sufficient information to know whether his actions were reasonable.
The prosecutor said he planned to prove that Andersen could not have reasonably believed he needed to use deadly force, given what he knew at the time.
According to the probable cause statement, Andersen told investigators that he and his wife were sleeping in an upstairs bedroom when he heard a “commotion at the door” that became more intense. He thought someone was using the keys or tools on the front door.
Frightened, he went up the stairs and saw through the windows of the house that there were two people outside the front door. He thought to himself, “What am I going to do? It’s not going away and I have to do something now.”
He said he loaded his gun, went back to the windows and saw people “swarming” toward the door and becoming more aggressive, according to the statement.
Fire one shot towards the door. He said the door never opened and he never announced himself or said anything before he pulled the trigger.
When told he killed Rios, he put his head on the table and said he didn’t mean for anything to happen to anyone.
Andersen’s wife, Yoshi Andersen, told investigators that her husband told her he told a neighbor that if anyone tried to break into his house he would shoot them. The probable cause statement does not say when this conversation occurred.
She added that her husband fired the bullets from the top of the stairs and neither of them came downstairs. She said he fired the shot and then told her to call 911.
Investigators found a bullet hole in the door, but no evidence of any hard contact with the door itself, the latch or the door frame, according to the probable cause statement.
Rios’ husband, Mauricio Velasquez, told investigators she tried to open the door with keys from their cleaning company, but they were at the wrong address without their knowledge. He said they were trying to open the door for 30 seconds to a minute before shooting her.
He said they did not hear any sounds from inside and did not see any movement. He said the couple did not knock, knock on the door or use force of any kind to enter the house and never entered.
The shooting echoes a similar episode that occurred in Missouri in 2023 when… Ralph Jarl was shot by an 86-year-old man after the 16-year-old black teen accidentally came to his door. Missouri has a similar law, but prosecutors charged the shooter, Andrew Lester, with first-degree assault and armed criminal action. He eventually pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and did not stand trial.
In New York, which has no established law, a A man was convicted in 2024 of second-degree murder For shooting a woman, killing her, inside a car that accidentally fell into the driveway of his rural home upstate.
Judy Madera, an Indiana University law professor who specializes in gun rights, said last week that Rios’ case was “horrific” and “exceptionally unusual.”
In general, the public can legally access private property — including a front porch — for a legitimate purpose until they are asked to leave, Madera said. For example, a homeowner couldn’t legally shoot a pizza delivery person or Amazon driver simply for entering their property, she said.
Madera said Monday that the allegations in the probable cause statement show that Kurt Andersen was acting out of fear but that is not enough to invoke the Stand Your Ground law. She said there was no unlawful entry, and trying to insert a key into the lock or shaking the door handle is not a reasonable justification for firing a shot.
“A reasonable person says, ‘Hey, I’ve got my phone here, I’ve got other options, I can shout a warning.’ It’s seven in the morning, did someone really break into my house? “He jumped out of bed and immediately entered while I was fighting a break-in.”
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Richmond reported from Madison, Wisconsin.