(WHITESTOWN, Ind.) — An Indiana man has been charged with voluntary manslaughter for fatally shooting a cleaning woman who mistakenly went to the wrong home, prosecutors announced Monday, nearly two weeks after the mother of four was killed.
The suspect, Curt Andersen, has been booked into the Boone County jail on a no bond hold and will appear in court sometime this week, prosecutors said.
The Boone County prosecutor, Kent Eastwood, said the decision to file the charge follows a “comprehensive examination,” in which his office determined Andersen’s actions did not fall under the legal protections provided by the Indiana Stand Your Ground law.
“It’s our contention that the person did not have a reasonable belief that that type of force was necessary, given all the facts that he had at that time,” Eastwood said during a press briefing on Monday.
The shooting occurred the morning of Nov. 5 in a subdivision of Whitestown, located approximately 20 miles northwest of Indianapolis, police said.
Officers responding to a 911 call reporting a possible home invasion shortly before 7 a.m. found the woman dead on the front porch of the residence with a gunshot wound, Whitestown police said.
The gun had been fired from inside by a resident of the home, police said. A responding police officer saw a bullet hole in the front door of the residence, according to the probable cause affidavit.
Police later determined the woman was part of a cleaning crew that had mistakenly arrived at the wrong address, and that “the facts gathered do not support” that a home invasion occurred.
The Boone County Coroner’s Office identified the shooting victim as 32-year-old Maria Florinda Rios Perez de Velasquez of Indianapolis. She died from a gunshot wound to the head, the coroner’s office said.
Eastwood said his office started a review of the case on Nov. 10 following a “thorough and professional” police investigation, which included taped witness statements and crime scene diagrams.
The prosecutor said he has received words of support from people who said they were praying for him “because we know you have a difficult decision to make.”
“Honestly, it wasn’t,” he said. “I hate to sound cavalier about this, but it wasn’t a hard decision.”
Velasquez’s husband told Indianapolis ABC affiliate WRTV that they had been cleaning homes for seven months and he was with her when she was shot.
“I never thought it was a shot, but I realized when my wife took two steps back, she looked like she’d been hit in the head,” her husband, Mauricio Perez-Velasquez, told WRTV in Spanish.
“She fell into my arms, and I saw the blood. It went everywhere,” he told the station.
They have four children, the youngest 11 months old, according to WRTV.
“This is a tragedy for everyone involved, and our hearts and prayers are with her family as they navigate this difficult time,” Eastwood said.
The prosecutor said this type of case is “very rare” in Boone County, and chastised what he called “false and misleading information” circulating since the shooting, including the claim the person who committed the crime was a police officer.
“This must stop immediately,” he said. “It does not help the process. It does not help this case. It undermines the integrity of the judicial process. It spreads confusion and it harms both the victim’s family and the accused’s right to a fair trial.”
Andersen has no connection to law enforcement, Eastwood said.
Andersen, the homeowner, told police that he woke up due to a “commotion” at his front door that sounded like someone was trying to get inside, according to the affidavit. He said he saw two people at the front door and thought they were breaking into his home, so he went to retrieve his gun, according to the affidavit.
“Curt described the individuals were ‘thrusting’ at the front door to get in with what he described as getting more and more aggressive,” the affidavit stated.
At that point, he shot toward the closed front door of the residence, according to the affidavit. A spent cartridge casing was found on the stairs inside the home, according the affidavit.
The victim’s husband told police he never heard anyone speak inside the home, “just the one shot,” and he did not use any force to try to enter the residence or bang on the door, according to the affidavit.
Her husband told police he and his wife had been given a set of keys by their employer in advance and they believed they were at a model home they were assigned to clean based on the GPS directions, according to the affidavit. He said from the time they arrived at the home until he called 911 was approximately 2 minutes, and they were trying to gain access using the keys they were given for about 30 seconds to 1 minute, according to the affidavit.
When Andersen was informed the person shot was a cleaning woman with her husband who had mistakenly gone to the wrong address, he “became upset and immediately put his head down on the table,” the affidavit stated.
“After some time, Curt said he didn’t mean for anything to happen to anybody,” the affidavit stated.
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