Wounded woman testifies in Nevada about trespass killing

[Jazzy]

A female trespasser who survived a shooting in a vacant Nevada duplex testified Wednesday that the property owner entered the unit and opened fire without provocation, wounding her three times and killing a man on the floor next to her.

Janai Wilson testified in Washoe District Court in Reno before prosecutors rested their case against Wayne Burgarello on charges of murder and attempted murder.

Burgarello, 74, has said he fired in self-defense when he killed 34-year-old Cody Devine and seriously wounded Wilson on Feb. 13, 2014.

Neither trespasser had a gun, but Burgarello told police Devine's arm "came up like a gun." His defense attorney said Burgarello may have mistaken a black flashlight found at the scene for a firearm.

Two neighbors testified Wednesday that Burgarello told them years earlier that he might arm himself and wait for people responsible for repeatedly vandalizing and burglarizing the vacant duplex.

"He told me, 'I'm going to be waiting inside with a gun,'" Kevin Morgan said.

The defense is scheduled to call witnesses Thursday, with closing arguments planned Friday in the case that highlights Nevada's "stand your ground" law. It allows deadly force against attackers who pose an imminent threat, regardless of whether they are armed, but specifies the shooter cannot be the initial aggressor.

Wilson, 30, said she met Devine the night before the shooting at a casino. She said he offered to give her a ride to pick up a discarded table to take to the abandoned duplex, where she had lived off and on for three years and was trying to establish squatter's rights by listing the address on her driver's license.

Wilson said she injected methamphetamine at the duplex, but Devine didn't because he couldn't find a vein. She said she was later awakened by what sounded like someone crashing through the front door, followed by an angry voice saying, "What are you doing in my house?"

Wilson said Devine replied, "We were just sleeping."

Wilson said she looked up and saw Burgarello in the bedroom doorway with a gun.

"I realized it was my responsibility to talk to the guy, so I looked up to respond to him," Wilson said. "I saw him with a gun, and shoot Cody. He raised it and shot. I screamed."

Devine was shot five times, once through the skull. Wilson said the second shot hit her leg. She was also shot in the arm and stomach.

"I didn't move at all. I was scared," she testified.

She soon heard another man who sounded like he was outside the duplex ask, "What's going on in there?" She said the first voice answered, "They're in my house and I shot them."

Source

Did Burgarello have the right to shoot them? Why/Why not?

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

If they do not prosecute the owner I bet word will get out not to break the law on go on his property.

 

[Jazzy]

If they do not prosecute the owner I bet word will get out not to break the law on go on his property.

Did Burgarello have the right to shoot them? Why/Why not?

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

They were inside a building that did not belong to them. Did he have the right? Yes. Should he have just shot them like that? Probably not.

 

[Jazzy]

*Update*

Nevada man not guilty in killing of unarmed trespasser

Accused of murder for confronting two unarmed trespassers with a deadly barrage of gunfire, Wayne Burgarello walked out of a Nevada courthouse a free man after the jury found him not guilty of all charges in the latest of a series of cases nationally testing the boundaries of stand-your-ground self-defense laws.

Burgarello, 74, a retired Sparks school teacher, insisted he was acting in self-defense when he shot and killed Cody Devine and seriously wounded Janai Wilson in a vacant, rundown duplex he owns in February 2014.

A jury deliberated for six hours before finding him not guilty on a charge of attempted murder as well as four alternative charges of first- and second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter. He would have faced up to life in prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder.

Jurors made a good decision. No way the squatter would be dead if he just stayed out of a house belonging to another person. These squatters think they are just entitled to things that do not belong to them.

What do you think of the not guilty verdict?

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

Good decision.