Gun control means being able to hit your target - ask this lady

[fnfalman]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/new...6?OpenDocument

A woman who was raped in her Cape Girardeau, Mo., home last weekend shot and fatally wounded the attacker when he broke in again early Friday morning, officials said.

Prosecuting Attorney H. Morley Swingle said no charges would be filed against the woman, 57, who shot Ronnie W. Preyer, 47, a registered sex offender, in the chest with a shotgun.

Officials said she did not know him.

At about midnight Oct. 25, she heard glass break in her basement and was grabbed by a man as she tried to flee out the front door. He punched her in the face, forced her into a bedroom and raped her, Swingle said.

She reported the crime to police, and her landlord repaired the window.

On Friday, she was home alone, watching TV about 2:15 a.m. when a man broke the same basement window and switched off the electricity to the house, Swingle said.

She tried to call 911 but couldn't with the power off. So she got a shotgun and waited as the man began banging on a door from the basement. She fired when he came crashing through the door.

After she fled to a neighbor's home to call police, officers found Preyer, badly wounded, stumbling away. He died at St. Francis Medical Center several hours later.

Swingle said the victim identified Preyer from photos as her previous attacker. When he was shot, Preyer, of Jackson, Mo., had wet caulking on his clothing from the recently repaired basement window.

Preyer had been convicted in New Madrid, Mo., in 1989 of rape and robbery and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was convicted in 2006 of failing to register as a sex offender, and earlier this year of misdemeanor assault.

Said Swingle, "I will not be filing any sort of charge against this ... woman, who was clearly justified under the law in shooting this intruder in her home."