Free Republic

Just days before he shot to death a 17-year-old German exchange student, Markus Kaarma told hair stylists he had been waiting up to shoot some kids who were burglarizing homes. He told them they would see it on the news. Kaarma hoped to bait an intruder by leaving his garage door partially open and placing a purse inside, prosecutors said. And when he did, a motion detector alerted him early April 27. Kaarma took a shotgun outside and almost immediately fired four blasts into the garage. Diren Dede, unarmed, was hit twice. He died after the final shot hit him...

A teen who was with a German exchange student the night he was fatally shot in a Montana garage testified at the homeowner’s murder trial that his friend thought burglarizing garages was a game and didn’t know he could get shot. Robby Pazmino told jurors Tuesday that he and Diren Dede went for a walk late April 26 when they noticed Markus Kaarma’s garage door partially open. Pazmino says he asked Dede if he was “going there.” Dede didn’t respond, so Pazmino says he waited down the street. He testified that he heard the first shot and started running. Pazmino...

District Judge Ed McLean has denied a motion to change the trial venue for Markus Kaarma, the Missoula man accused of fatally shooting a German exchange student in his garage last April. In a 208-page motion to move the trial, Kaarma’s attorneys argued that local media reports have tainted Missoula’s jury pool by painting Kaarma as a “cold-blooded killer.” Katie Lacny, who filed the motion, argued her 30-year-old client has been held captive in his Grant Creek home and received death threats as the media “aroused sympathies and created a community outcry against” him. “The pretrial publicity has stirred up...

MISSOULA, Mont. - A Montana man accused of fatally shooting a German exchange student in his garage pleaded not guilty to murder Wednesday, Reuters reports. Last month, 29-year-old Markus Kaarma, of Missoula, allegedly shot and killed 17-year-old Diren Dede, of Hamburg, Germany, after the teen broke into his garage. The former U.S. Forest Service firefighter has been charged with deliberate homicide, according to the news agency.

The attorney for a Montana man charged in the death of a 17-year-old German exchange student says the teen and a companion had broken into homeowners’ garages three of four times before the shooting. Paul Ryan represents Markus Kaarma, who is charged with deliberate homicide in the April 27 slaying of Diren Dede in Missoula. […] Ryan says the Ecuadorian student told police the boys started “garage hopping” after learning about the practice from other students at their high school. …

The father of a 17-year-old exchange student shot dead in Montana departed the U.S. on Thursday after criticizing the nation’s gun culture and arranging for his son’s body to be flown back to Germany. Celal Dede flew out of Missoula after securing the release of Diren Dede’s body, which was transported from Montana on Wednesday afternoon, German consulate spokeswoman Julia Reinhardt said. Before he departed, Celal Dede told the German news agency DPA that he had never imagined his son could be shot for simply entering somebody’s property. “America cannot continue to play cowboy,” Celal Dede said. …