DETROIT (AP) — A suburban Detroit man who killed an unarmed
woman on his porch immediately suggested to police it was an accident
and that he didn’t know his shotgun was loaded, according to recorded
remarks played in court Thursday.
Theodore Wafer, dressed in jeans
and a T-shirt, met officers outside his Dearborn Heights home after
they responded to his 911 call around 4:30 a.m. on Nov. 2.
"What happened here?" Sgt. Rory McManmon asked, according to the recording played by
prosecutors.
"A
consistent knocking on the door, and I’m trying to look through the
windows and the door," Wafer said. "It’s banging somewhere else so I
open up the door, kind of like who is this? And the gun discharged.
"I
didn’t know there was a round in there," Wafer told McManmon. "I don’t
get it. Who’s knocking on your door at 4:30 in the morning? Bang, bang,
bang — somebody wanting in."
Wafer, 55, is charged with
second-degree murder in the death of Renisha McBride, who appeared on
his porch 3 ½ hours after crashing her car a half-mile away in Detroit.
He
told police that the victim, later identified as 19-year-old McBride,
looked like a "neighbor girl or something." She didn’t live in the
neighborhood. An autopsy revealed she was extremely drunk.
Wafer’s
lawyers say he shot McBride in self-defense. Prosecutors, however, say
he should have called police if he feared for his safety.
On the
second day of Wafer’s trial, jurors heard more testimony from witnesses
who encountered McBride after her car crash. Officers who took photos
and collected evidence also testified. McBride’s mother and other
relatives left the courtroom to avoid seeing pictures of her body.
On
cross-examination, Cpl. Tim Zawacki acknowledged that a portion of a
front-door screen was leaning out of its frame. Wafer’s attorneys have
pointed to the condition of the screen as evidence that McBride had
damaged the house, but prosecutors blame any damage on the gunshot.
Cpl. Mark Parrinello said it was more than a week before he was told to go to Wafer’s home to dust doors
for fingerprints.
"It was an inadequate, incomplete investigation," defense attorney Cheryl Carpenter said.
On
the recording played in court, police asked Wafer about his weapon,
which was on the floor in his home when officers responded to the
shooting.
"It’s a little Mossberg, you know, shotgun. Self-defense," he replied.