Hoosier State Woman Fatally Shot After Arriving at Incorrect Home Address for Cleaning Duties
Law enforcement officials in the state are weighing possible criminal charges against a resident who reportedly shot and killed a female after she mistakenly went to the wrong location thinking she was assigned to clean a property.
Police discovered Maria Florinda Rios Perez De Velasquez, 32 years old, deceased just before 7am at the entrance of a home in Whitestown, a community of approximately 10,000 residents near Indianapolis.
She belonged to a cleaning crew that had arrived at the wrong address, according to police in an official release.
Officials did not publicly identified the person who fired, but police submitted their findings from the probe to the Boone County prosecutor, the county prosecutor, on Friday afternoon.
This case will highlight Indiana’s self-defense statutes, which allow a person to use lethal force to stop what they reasonably believe is an illegal entry into their dwelling.
But the shooting has shocked many. Rios Perez’s husband, Mauricio Velazquez, told WRTV that he was standing with her at the front door but didn’t realize she had been shot until she collapsed into his arms, injured. On a fundraising page, her brother said that Rios Perez was a parent to four children.
Thirty-one states have similar laws to Indiana on the books, as reported by the national legislative research group.
In comparable incidents in other states, authorities have successfully brought charges against individuals who used a firearm outside their homes, including a guilty plea by an elderly man who fired at Ralph Yarl after the youth came to his door accidentally. In New York, a man was convicted of homicide for fatally shooting a woman inside a car who entered his property by mistake.
The incident underscores continuing discussions about self-defense laws and their application in everyday situations.
