CUSHING — For 10 minutes and 20 seconds, Donna Jackson remained calm as she stood in the dark pleading for help and repeatedly telling emergency dispatchers that she did not want to shoot the "crazy,” "drunk sounding” man who was yelling and determined to get inside her house early Friday.
But when he threw a table through her sliding glass patio door, the 56-year-old woman — who was home alone — couldn’t wait for deputies any longer.
There is a loud crash on the 911 tape.
The phone drops, and there’s a single shot from a 16-gauge shotgun.
Only then, does the woman who has been so calm throughout the ordeal begin to fall apart.
"I shot. I shot,” Jackson tells the dispatcher frantically. "I’m going out front. I hit him. Oh God, help me! I dropped the phone. ... Oh please, dear God, I think I’ve killed him.”
As the reality sinks in, her voice fades to a whisper, "Please, Father in Heaven. Please, Father in Heaven. Oh my God, ma’am. Please.”
And she begins to sob, "I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
The dispatcher on the other end of the line tries to comfort her, telling her there was nothing she could have done — she had to protect herself.
"No, he’s bleeding,” Jackson said, looking at the body on her back porch. "I’m so sorry, Father.”
A ‘bizarre’ situation Lincoln County Sheriff Chuck Mangion said dispatchers first got the call from Jackson about 12:40 a.m., after her dogs’ barking woke her up.
The man shot and killed at Jackson’s home, Billy Dean Riley, 53, was no stranger to the sheriff’s office.
"I’d say he’s been in an out of jail since he was old enough to go to jail,” Mangion said. "He has a long history of drug and alcohol-related offenses.”
But what has the sheriff puzzled is why the intruder was so determined to break into Jackson’s rather fortified home, marked by a locked gate and "Beware of the dog” signs.
"As to what his motives were in trying to break into the house remains unclear,” Mangion said.
Jackson said the man was talking "crazy.” He apparently didn’t know where his pickup was, and he kept yelling for someone named "Pat.”
Mangion said his deputies found Riley’s pickup just down the secluded rural road, and it appeared the vehicle had left the roadway and run into a ditch.
Inside the pickup, investigators found Riley’s sister, Patricia Ellen Totty, 45, unconscious from what they called an overdose of alcohol and narcotics. She was taken to a Stroud hospital, where she was later listed in good condition.
Mangion said he couldn’t say whether Riley had gone to the house to get help for his sister.
"He didn’t go to the front door or ring the door bell to try to gain entry,” the sheriff said.
Mangion said Riley is a repeat offender, but local officers have never seen him do anything like this before.
"Dealing with him, I can tell you that when he had a load on, he could be a pretty mean individual,” the sheriff said. "But this is just bizarre. I’ve been doing this for 35 years, and this one is pretty much a mind-blower.”
Court records show Riley, of Sparks, has a number of driving under the influence of alcohol convictions, including convictions in Lincoln County in 1997, 1999, 2001 and 2004. He was convicted of public intoxication in Lincoln County in 2002 and of possession of marijuana in Lincoln County in 1998.
Thanks for the rest of the story Daffynation.
No sane person wants to kill a person; but if you have to do it to protect yourself and/or your family — you will.