Markus Kaarma, the man accused of shooting and killing a 17-year-old foreign exchange student in his Missoula garage, is receiving death threats and fears leaving his home, defense attorney Paul Ryan said Tuesday.
Kaarma, 29, posted $30,000 bond Monday afternoon and was released from the Missoula County jail after making his initial appearance in Missoula County Justice Court.
He faces a felony charge of deliberate homicide for the death of Diren Dede, a German exchange student who was studying at Big Sky High School.
Since returning to his Grant Creek home, Kaarma and his partner Janelle Pflager have received anonymous death threats on Facebook, Ryan said. International media and curious locals alike have been hounding the couple, making them fearful to leave the house.
“They didn’t sleep at all last night,” Ryan said. “They are trapped in their house now.”
Ryan said he has also been bombarded by national and international news outlets demanding information regarding the incident since news of the shooting broke in Europe.
Dede’s shooting has perplexed the German public, who live under much more stringent gun laws than the United States, explained Frank Herrmann, the Washington, D.C., correspondent for the Rheinische Post.
“There are a lot of things that Germans really like about the U.S.,” Hermann said. “But there are a few things they simply don’t understand.”
Germans aren’t familiar with the concept of private gun ownership, and the frequency of shootings in the United States – alongside more lenient gun laws – baffle the German media, Hermann said. Few Germans own guns for self-defense.
Studying abroad for a year during high school is a very popular thing to do with German youth, but now parents may think twice about sending their children to the United States for an exchange, Hermann said Tuesday.
“It has a very chilling effect,” he said. “The fact that a student from Hamburg was shot – that brings it home.”
Prosecutors allege Kaarma and his common-law wife baited his garage to attract burglars who had reportedly stolen items from the home several times in the past couple of weeks. The couple set up a baby monitor with a live feed and installed motion sensors in the garage. They also left the garage door open about 5 1/2 feet, the charging document said. Pflager told police she also placed a purse in the garage, and catalogued its contents.
Ryan said the couple had just gotten out of the hot tub and were watching a movie on the couch when they heard a sensor alert – indicating someone was in their garage. Kaarma allegedly grabbed a shotgun and exited the front door to confront the intruder. He then entered the garage through the open door and fired his shotgun four times into the darkness.
Two of those bullets hit and killed Diren Dede, a junior at Big Sky High School, who was standing in the garage. It’s unclear why Dede, who was unarmed, was in the garage. Police will not release information on what another boy who was also there, and ran away when Kaarma appeared, told them about the incident.
Pflager allegedly told police that Kaarma said “hey, hey” before he loaded a shell into the gun’s chamber. She said Dede yelled “hey” or “wait” before the shotgun fired. The boy was dead on arrival at St. Patrick Hospital.
Kaarma told police after the incident he was afraid the intruder had a knife or a tool from the garage, but couldn’t be certain because it was pitch-black inside.
“He stated he thought he was going to die and that the guy would try to get out of the garage and described thinking he could act like a caged animal,” the affidavit stated.
Kaarma allegedly told his hair stylist several days before Sunday’s incident that he had been waiting up for three nights with his shotgun “to shoot some (expletive) kid.” The stylist spoke with authorities after hearing of the shooting.
According to the charging document, the woman said “the defendant was extremely vulgar and belligerent. She asked the defendant to quit swearing and he said he could say ‘whatever the (expletive)’ he wanted.”
Ryan plans to fight the murder charge in Missoula County District Court using Montana’s “castle doctrine” as a defense.
The castle doctrine states that when a forcible felony occurs within a home, the resident of that home has a right to defend himself using a firearm. However, it also states that a person who decides to use that force must believe they are at risk of serious bodily injury or death.
Kaarma, who works as a firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service, is a family man who was justifiably concerned about the well-being of his 10-month-old son, Ryan said Tuesday.
He believes the picture of his client painted by the prosecutor’s affidavit is inaccurate.
Kaarma was frustrated by the burglaries that occurred in the weeks before, and perhaps vented to his hair stylist about the situation, Ryan explained.
But he rebuts the idea that Kaarma was baiting the teenagers to enter the garage – adamantly denying the idea that Kaarma was waiting up for nights on end to catch the burglars.
He said Kaarma and Pflager both smoke in the garage and consistently leave the garage door half open. The door was open each time they had been robbed in the past, he said.
Still, Ryan said Kaarma and Pflager both feel terrible about Dede’s tragic death.
“It’s just disheartening,” he said “I wish I could just fix it.”
> Markus Kaarma, Janelle Pflager and their son.
Diren Dede, right, plays in a Big Sky soccer game against Hellgate last fall. Coach Jay Bostrom said Dede’s favorite team back home in Hamburg was the perennial underdog St. Pauli.