Rancho Cordova, California



From the February 7, 2004 Sacramento Bee:

Woman opens fire on intruder



A man is wounded as she defends her home with two handguns.



Firing nine rounds from two handguns, a 53-year-old Rancho Cordova woman fended off an intruder Thursday night after he crashed through her sliding glass door.

William Kriske, a 47-year-old parolee, was treated for a gunshot wound to the arm, then taken to jail and arrested on suspicion of burglary and resisting arrest, according to Sacramento County Sheriff's Sgt. Lou Fatur.



"It was one of those nights. I have a few holes in my glass out front," Carolyn Lisle said Friday.







"That's OK, I don't think he'll be back," said Lisle, who emptied one .357 revolver at the intruder before she retrieved a second one and he crashed through another window to flee.



"I was trying to miss my furniture. Priorities, right?" Lisle said.



Lisle, shaken but spirited, recounted her night that started as a quiet evening of TV with three friends and two dogs in her living room.



At about 9 p.m., a noise at the sliding door prompted a male visitor to get up to investigate, but Lisle dashed to a back room to get one of her guns.



"I knew it couldn't be good," Lisle said.



When the intruder shattered the glass, Lisle's three guests fled from the house. Lisle stood her ground and opened fire.



"He was like a mosquito hitting the window. Every time he turned around, poweee," she said.



Lisle wasn't sure the intruder was alone so she nervously watched her back as she squeezed off rounds.



When she emptied one gun, she still hadn't hit him. And he wasn't gone.



"He was still in the garage, flitting around," she said.



She went to get another gun -- "I like to be prepared," she said -- and waited to see his next move. After tearing up the garage, he finally broke out through a garage window, but he veered toward Lisle's front door. She fired again, hitting him at least once.



The bleeding intruder ran across the street and tried to hot-wire a motorcycle, but its owners, already armed to come to Lisle's aid, chased off the would-be thief, she said.



She said one of the men yelled after the retreating burglar: "And that's just our womenfolk."



A California Highway Patrol officer stopped the suspect a short distance away and sheriff's deputies arrested Kriske.



Lisle is still puzzled why someone would break into a well-lit living room with four people and two dogs.

Terminally stupid, perhaps?