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LUCERNE, Calif. – A woman who shot a man allegedly trying to break into her home early Sunday morning had been terrified for years by someone coming onto her property and stalking her, according to family members.
A suspect in an attempted break-in of a home in 14th Avenue in Lucerne was shot shortly before 2 a.m., as Lake County News has reported.
On Sunday, Marc Harry Halvorsen, 27, of Nice was booked into the Lake County Jail on felony charges of attempted robbery and first-degree attempted burglary, according to jail records. His bail was set at $50,000.
Robert Krentz of Lucerne said his 77-year-old mother was the victim of Halvorsen's alleged attempt to break into her home early Sunday.
Krentz asked that his elderly mother's name not be released yet because of concerns for her safety.
He said she has been the victim of an ongoing case of harassment for years. The person behind that harassment has so far not been positively identified, but Krentz is concerned that it was connected to the Sunday break-in attempt.
Krentz said his mother shot Halvorsen after his third attempt to kick in her sliding glass door. Before she shot she had issued him a warning that she was armed.
He said his mother used a 9 millimeter pistol that she kept for self-protection to shoot the suspect.
Halvorsen later was found trying to limp down 14th Avenue with the gunshot wound to his upper thigh, Krentz said.
Deputy Gavin Wells arrested Halvorsen at 2:14 a.m., according to jail records.
Radio reports indicated that the suspect in the case had been transported to Sutter Lakeside Hospital for treatment. Halvorsen later was released and booked into the Lake County Jail at 7:21 a.m., jail records showed.
Krentz said his mother is a frail amputee with limited mobility who actually is terrified of guns.
However, for several years she has been the victim of harassment – including having her yard and fencing torn up, and her vehicle tires flattened. Someone even left a rope with a knife in a box at her front door, according to Krentz and his wife, Loretta.
At one point his mother's next door neighbor sat up watching her home at night, sitting guard with a 12-gauge shotgun, Robert Krentz said.
Loretta Krentz said someone has done “numerous things to try to scare her to death,” all of which have been reported to the sheriff's office.
As to why the harassment started more than five years ago, Loretta Krentz said they had no idea.
Finally, it reached the point where the woman – who is terrified of guns, and had herself been shot when she was younger – asked for a gun for self-protection, a request that her son said got his attention. He subsequently got her the 9 millimeter handgun.
Early Sunday she was awakened to an intruder when her dog began barking and making noise, Robert Krentz said.
He said she couldn't hear the suspect at first, but then she heard a crack against the sliding glass door which entered a room where she was sleeping in a chair. The chair was only two and a half feet from the glass door, Krentz said.
Because she has limited mobility, she couldn't move or retreat, and couldn't reach the window to pull back the curtain to look outside. Instead, she took out the handgun and called 911, he said.
When she heard another crack against the door, she gave the suspect a command to stop and told him she was armed and would shoot if he didn't, Krentz said.
The beating on the window continued, and Krentz said when she heard it start to give way, she fired.
Krentz said Halvorsen was still on the home's deck when his mother's neighbor came out and confronted the suspect.
The neighbor's wife had called Central Dispatch early Sunday and reported her husband had fought with the suspect, as Lake County News has reported.
At about the same time a dispatcher who was speaking with Krentz's mother advised Wells that the woman was continuing to fire her weapon.
Jail records indicate Halvorsen is scheduled to appear in Lake County Superior Court for arraignment on Tuesday.
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