Mother of three uses gun to stop attackers in her home.

Mother of three uses gun to stop attackers in her home.
Submitted on: December 17, 2001

By FRANCES STARKEY
Des Moines Register Staff Writer
A mother of three in Early shot and killed an intruder Thursday night after two men entered her home and assaulted her, authorities said.

Tracey Roberts was home with her three children, ages 1, 3 and 11, when two men entered the home, according to the Sac County Sheriff's Department. Roberts' husband, Mike Roberts, was reportedly out of town on business.

The two intruders assaulted Roberts before she got away from them and grabbed a gun, authorities said. Roberts fired several times and fatally wounded Dustin Wehde, 20, of Early, according to the sheriff's office. It wasn't clear who owned the gun.

Preliminary results from the state medical examiner show that Wehde died of multiple gunshot wounds.

The other intruder fled. He was described as 25 to 35 years old, almost 6 feet tall, with a slender build and dark, wavy hair. Sheriff's deputies were looking for him Friday evening.

Roberts was taken to Loring Hospital in Sac City, where she was treated and released. The children were reportedly uninjured.

"I think for a lot of people there's a shock value," said Kenneth Myers, who was elected to the Early City Council in November. "As more people find out who it was, the shock will grow because they're from the town. Most of us, after a day of wondering, are just trying to find out some of the details. I don't think anyone has a clear picture yet."

Myers, a math teacher at Schaller-Crestland High School, said he was Wehde's teacher for several years.

"We didn't always get along," he said. "He wasn't as social as any of the other kids. I never would have expected him to do something like this."

Authorities have released a description of the suspect but were saying little else Saturday about the case.

Smart move on their part. There's something screwy with this case, at least as it's presented in the press.

What the husband says and what the dead guy's uncle say are two different things:

Wehde "was under the influence of the other person . . . the boss," said Roberts, who operates a computer business.

"I think he walked in on something going on in the house. I think Dustin was coming to the rescue," Wehde said. In the darkness and confusion, "he ended up getting shot for mistaken reasons."

One of them suggests he was in the house with the intruder, the other suggests he may have just happened to walk in when the intruder was there.

I hope the sheriff checks out every possibility, including the fact that the husband may be involved. It doesn't sound to me like these were just burglars. They were really trying to kill this woman, elsewise, wouldn't you think they'd take off with the boy swinging the baseball bat? Or, if they didn't want witnesses, why wouldn't they try to kill the boy, too?

Tracey Roberts had severe bruises from the attempts to strangle her, her husband said Saturday. She passed out twice but was able to regain consciousness and remove a pistol from a small bedside safe, he said.

This makes it sound like this struggle went on for some time, assuming that it's impossible to pass out twice in the space of a few seconds. It sounds to me like someone was definitely trying to kill her, and whoever the other guy is, he was either hired by someone else who wanted her dead, or he himself knew her personally and had some grudge against her. Maybe he wanted to sleep with her and she turned him down. I would definitely check out the finances of the husband and his computer business.

Something is definitely wrong with this picture. I hope the authorities check out the husband, the dead guy's history, and whoever the missing guy is (I have no doubt they'll catch him--small town like that).

To add to my previous post:

"This makes it sound like this struggle went on for some time, assuming that it's impossible to pass out twice in the space of a few seconds." Tracey Roberts had severe bruises from the attempts to strangle her, her husband said Saturday. She passed out twice but was able to regain consciousness and remove a pistol from a small bedside safe, he said.

So, she passed out twice, regained consciousness AND managed to retrieve a gun from a gun safe, all while she was being strangled? What was the intruder doing while she was getting the gun from the gun safe? Was the boy beating him with the baseball bat long enough for her to free herself and get the gun from the gun safe?

BTW, I'm in no way suggesting that this woman didn't have every right to shoot any intruders, no matter how many of them there were. There's just a whole lot more to this story than meets the eye, I'm sure.

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