Cleaner shot entering the wrong house died by ‘homicide’ but the killer may not be charged. Here’s why.
The family of a cleaner killed attempting to enter the wrong home by accident are pleading for her killer to be brought to justice but it’s possible the homicide may not lead to criminal charges.
On Wednesday, 32-year-old Maria Florinda Rios Perez was killed after mistakenly trying to enter the wrong home to begin her cleaning job in Whitestown, Indiana. She was shot in the head through a door and died in her husband’s arms.
Over $100,000 has already been raised via two separate GoFundMe pages for Perez’s family who say they want the person responsible for her death to be brought to justice.
“What I need now is for there to be justice because he took her life… I don’t believe that’s human,” her husband Mauricio Velazquez told WRTV. “He’s an animal… Now, I am father and mother for my children, for my daughters and he’s happy at home.”
In an update on the case Whitestown Police Department said the Boone County Coroner’s Office had determined that the manner of Perez’s death was “homicide.” But such a ruling may not lead to criminal charges.
According to the department, the term “homicide” in this incident is a medical classification indicating that one human being caused the death of another. “This designation does not imply criminal intent or legal culpability, and it should not be interpreted as a criminal finding,” the department wrote online.
The individual responsible for killing has not been named by police who stated that it would be “both inappropriate and potentially dangerous” to disclose that information. Perez’s case has been referred to the Boone County Prosecutor.
Reached by phone Friday evening, a spokesperson from the office told The Independent that no decision on charges had yet been made, and declined to comment further. The Independent also sent an email follow-up seeking clarification.
It is possible that no further charges may be brought due to the strength and extended protections of Indiana’s “stand-your-ground” laws.
Among the provisions is that a person is justified in using deadly force against someone if they have a reasonable belief that force is required to prevent “the unlawful entry of the defendant’s home or curtilage (the area around their home), according to Purdue Global Law School.
“When it comes to a dwelling, individuals can use reasonable force, including deadly force, against another person,” Boone County prosecutor Kent Eastwood told NBC News.
“They have no duty to retreat, that’s in the law. That person who uses that force has to reasonably believe that the force is necessary to prevent or terminate an unlawful entry or attack on the person’s dwelling.”
Perez had been trying to enter the residence with a key meant for a different home. Her husband said he had double-checked the address – they had been given the wrong one.
Eastwood told The Associated Press that bringing charges would not be easy and that he will have to pore over investigators’ findings to understand what happened in the moments leading up to the shooting.
“You need to understand all the details so you can understand what happened and what is reasonable,” Eastwood said. “One of the hardest things today in this world is to agree on what’s reasonable. As a prosecutor, those are things we have to grapple with.”
On a fundraising page, which is intended to hire a lawyer and help repatriate Perez’s body to Guatemala, her brother Rudy Rojas described the late mother-of-four as “a devoted mother, loving wife, and beautiful soul whose light will never fade.”
“It’s so unjust. She was only trying to bring home the daily bread to support her family,” Rios told NBC News in Spanish. “She wasn’t threatening.”
