Posted on 01/10/2008 10:15:47 AM PST by jaydubya2
HAMMOND | A Hessville woman will not be charged in the shooting death of a man accused of breaking into her home in November and stalking her.
(Listen to the 911 call)
Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter said on Wednesday he was turning down any charges against the woman in the death of Ryan Lee Bergner, 41, considering her actions to be in self-defense and defense of property.
The Nov. 12 shooting of Bergner as he cornered the 51-year-old woman in an upstairs bedroom closet capped a month of escalating terror -- chronicled in a series of police reports filed by the woman -- which included break-ins, vandalism and assaults in her workplace.
They had briefly dated over the summer, but Bergner couldn't accept that she didn't want to be his girlfriend, and wouldn't take "no" for an answer, the woman said.
That fatal Monday night, she was watching television at 10:30 p.m. when she heard a window breaking, and called 911.
An audio recording of her conversation with the emergency dispatcher, from the initial break-in to her escape from the dying Bergner six minutes later, was released by Hammond police on Wednesday.
"I'm so scared," the woman said to the 911 operator, who told her to lock herself in a bedroom until police arrived.
Bergner had already broken into her house two days earlier, she reported to police, destroying a clock-radio and stealing several of her undergarments.
"I heard him turn a light on, a hallway light," she told the dispatcher as she hid in a closet, armed with a pistol a friend had given her for protection.
"What are you doing?" she can be heard asking over the sound of her bedroom door being kicked in. "Stop it! Please stop it! Just stop it!"
Gunshots can clearly be heard on the recording. She later said Bergner was on top of her in the closet, his hands around her throat, choking her.
"What are you trying to do, kill me?" the mortally wounded Bergner asked.
"Are you trying to kill me?"
Police found her in her front yard when they arrived moments later, and found Bergner, wearing black leather gloves and a brown leather jacket, lying partially in the bedroom closet with three bullet wounds to his abdomen, a 9 mm pistol on the bed nearby.
"That tape is absolutely chilling," said Hammond Police Chief Brian Miller, who worked for years as a detective with the department's sex crimes division.
Miller said he is regularly asked to speak at meetings of women's organizations and support groups for victims of domestic violence, and in the future will be taking the recording along with him as an example of what can happen.
"I didn't want it to turn out like this," the woman told The Times the day after the shooting, though she declined to comment for the record on Wednesday's decision by the prosecutor's office.
His family may be having a hard time with this, but how on earth can they say he didn't go there with any intent to hurt her???? She backed off as far as she could. She was in an upstairs bedroom closet with him on top of her- she couldn't have waited any longer to shoot!
Whoever the friend was who gave her the gun, he or she saved this lady's life by giving her the means to protect herself. Thank God she was strong and courageous enough to use those means when she had to.
I'm sorry she had to go to that extent to protect herself but not sorry she did it.
I just love a happy ending!
I couldn’t hear the shots.
How different would the out come have been had this woman not had a firearm and the courage to use it. Always fight to keep the gun grabbers from disarming honest law abiding citizens!
Thank God!
I pray she never has a "next time" but if she does, I would advise her to shoot sooner.
jw
Glad she made it and had the sense to get a firearm. Otherwise she would be dead.
Good shooting ma’am.
Sorry she had to go through this.
When the dispatcher tells the woman, “It’s only been two minutes,” it was already over four minutes.
I heard two of the shots on the tape.
At first I thought the shots were noise from him breaking down the door, but I listened again.
It sounds to me like he came in the door, came at her, and she is saying stop it. And then a shot, and she says stop it, another shot. I don’t hear the third shot. But you can hear him saying (after the first 2 shots) “Are you trying to kill me?” He says this after she shot him at least twice.
She needed a larger caliber.
As the brother of a wonderful woman and mother of two who didn’t have the chance to make it the last ten feet to her firearms, I’m thankful that this poor woman did. Praying for her.
Thank God a good friend loaned her a gun....that friend saved her life!!
Thank God for her friend who loaned the gun to her.
Hope she returns it and buys one of her own now.
Friend of mine with Houston PD shot an armed robber 3 times in the gut with .45, using jacketed HP’s.
Robber lived, in jail, my friend said “every time he empties his colostomy bag, he remembers me.”
LOL
No he went there to break a window to enter her home and then kick her bedroom door down for a nice game of Parcheesi.
Your right, The dispatch says “they’re on their way, it’s only been two minutes”, 4:08 minutes after the start of the 911 call.
To liberals, it’s just another ‘gun related death’ that they’ll add to the totals to show how dangerous firearms are.
Bergner’s dad needs to man up and admit he raised a bully who was intent on the ultimate death of this woman. The Bergner family should hang their heads in shame and never mention the son’s name again.
This woman is my hero and should be the poster Woman for CCW!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.