The 911 caller tells an operator that he just shot two people that broke into his house.
One of them is still talking, but he cannot understand what he is saying, the caller tells 911 in recordings that were released Wednesday. “I believe one of them is shot bad” and needs an ambulance, the caller says.
The man speaks calmly but in a soft voice as the operator assesses the situation. The scene unfolded Monday afternoon near Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, after three teens, police said, tried to break into a Wagoner County home. The resident fatally shot all three, authorities said.
The burglars broke in through a back door, and the man on the phone says he shot them with an AR-15. One is in the kitchen, and the other crawled into a bedroom.
A third person fled through the door and ran. “I didn’t shoot him,” the caller says, though later another suspect is found dead in the driveway.
The shooter says he is in a back bedroom with his gun. The door is locked.
The 911 operator tells him when a deputy gets to the house to put the gun away.
He tells her the gun will be on the bed.
Alleged getaway driver arrested
The nearly eight-minute 911 call begins about 12:44 p.m. on Monday.
“I’ve just been broken into. Three men, two I’ve shot in my house,” the caller says. “One’s down, one’s still talking. You need to get here now.”
The caller doesn’t sound panicked, and waits for the operator to ask him questions.
Wagoner County Chief Deputy Les Young said a deputy arrived two minutes after the 911 call was initiated. The operator keeps the caller — a 23-year-old who lives at the home — on the phone until you hear the deputy talking to him.
A probable cause affidavit alleges Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez, 21, planned the burglary and waited in the car while the masked intruders broke into the home.
In a news release Wednesday, the sheriff’s department said Rodriguez waived her right to an attorney and told them she determined the residents “had money and expensive belongings, and that was why she selected his home to ‘hit a lick’ – a term some criminals use to describe getting a significant amount of money in a short period of time.”
Authorities said the suspect “became aware” of the homeowner, but did not know him or his son, the shooter.
Rodriguez and the three slain intruders burglarized a spare apartment at the residence earlier in the day and returned to rob the main house, the news release said. The three teens, dressed in black and covering their faces, kicked in the door, encountered the resident and were shot inside the house.
“One of the injured suspects exited the home and tried to get back in to Rodriguez’s vehicle, but she told investigators she drove away and left him in the driveway,” the release said.
Rodriguez allegedly fled and later went to the Broken Arrow Police Department.
Does ‘Stand your ground’ law apply?
Young said she was arrested and was being held on suspicion of three counts of first-degree murder, one count of first-degree burglary and one count of second-degree burglary.
Assistant District Attorney Jack Thorp said Tuesday that Rodriguez could be formally charged with murder if the suspects were killed while she was involved in a felony. But formal charges won’t come until later in the week, at the earliest.
It is unclear whether Rodriguez has an attorney.
The deceased suspects were Jaycob Woodruff, 16; Jacob Redfern, 17; and Maxwell Cook, 19, the sheriff’s office said. One suspect had a knife, and another carried brass knuckles, authorities have said.
Thorp told reporters that investigators will help his office determine whether Oklahoma’s “Stand Your Ground” law applies in the case of the triple shooting.
The law says: “A person or a owner, manager or employee of a business is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another.”