Indiana Homeowner Charged After Fatal Shooting Of House Cleaner

An Indiana homeowner faces charges in connection with the fatal shooting of a house cleaner who mistakenly arrived at the wrong address for a job in Whitestown, a suburb of Indianapolis. Prosecutors say the woman was standing on the front porch with her husband when Andersen, 62, shot her. Anderson took her front porch. She did not enter his home.

Curt Andersen was arrested and booked on one charge of voluntary manslaughter. He is being held without bail ahead of an initial court appearance, at which he is expected to ask a judge to set bond.

Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood told reporters that Andersen wasn’t reasonable in thinking he was justified in using lethal force.

Eastwood does NOT believe Indiana’s self-defense protections or a person’s right to defend themself in their home are “broken.”

Rather, he bluntly put it, prosecutors feel Andersen just didn’t know enough to justify shooting through his front door. “Robust evidence that this was a crime,” Eastwood said.

Eastwood characterized the charging decision as “clear and straight forward” even if the crime itself is emotional and very high energy for the community.

Wrong House And A Family Destroyed

The victim, Maria Florinda Rios Perez, was a 32-year-old immigrant from Guatemala and part of a cleaning crew scheduled to work in the area that morning. Investigators say she and her husband went to the wrong house shortly before 7 AM as they arrived for what they thought would be the start of a normal work day.

She was shot in the head through the front door and collapsed on the porch, dying in the arms of her husband, according to what family members told local media. Perez had four children aged from infant to teenager, and her death has sparked grief and rage among immigrant groups and the local community that are now calling for accountability.

Defense Leans On Indiana Self Defense Laws

Anderson’s criminal defense attorney, Guy Relford, called the killing a tragic disaster but insists that his client acted within the bounds of the law. In a statement released to the public, Relford said that Indiana state statute allows a person to use reasonable force, including deadly force, in self-defense if they reasonably believe that such force is necessary to prevent an unlawful entry in their home.

Without discussing the facts of the specific case Relford claimed that Anderson had every reason to believe he had acted reasonably and justifiably at that moment. He cautions against judging Anderson “in light of hindsight” and says that split second fear and uncertainty have to be taken in to account when the case is presented to a jury.

The jury will ultimately have to weigh that impression of danger against the language of Indiana’s self – defense statute, which allows broad latitude for Hoosier state residents to employ “reasonable” force to prevent serious bodily injury.

What Is “Reasonable” Force For A Jury

The primary question now for the lawyers, Relford and a still unnamed prosecutor for the docket, will then be how broadly that language is defined when the porch recipient of Anderson’s gunfire was at the wrong address, but for a legitimate reason.

Defense attorney Courtney Benson-Kooy, a member of the executive committee of the Indiana Bar’s Criminal Justice Section, says that those determinations are subjective and particularly fact dependent.

It will be up to jurors to decide whether or not Anderson actually feared serious harm, and whether a reasonable person would have done so, in their opinion. That balancing act between personal concerns and objective standards is at the root of many self defense cases across the United States.

For now Anderson is in custody awaiting his first court appearance, while Perez’s family buries a wife and mother, murdered on the door step of a house she never intended to enter. This case is already generating broader questions about stand your ground laws, the risks of firing through a closed door, and how quickly an otherwise ordinary day at work can turn fatal.