Cleaning Woman Killed in Indiana Shooting After Arriving at Wrong Home

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/us/whitestown-indiana-shooting-cleaner-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zk8.gnV3.foST4AIu6okI&smid=url-share

The shooting of the woman, an immigrant from Guatemala, took place on Wednesday in Indiana, a state with a “stand your ground” law.



The police in Whitestown, Ind., the small but growing town where the shooting took place, said that two residents had been inside the home that morning when the cleaners arrived. The residents believed their home was possibly being broken into and called 911. In the five minutes between the call and when the police arrived, one of the residents fired from inside the home and struck the woman in the head, officials said.

Detectives are now trying to track down exactly what happened, and prosecutors are preparing to review whether to file charges.

____

Mr. Ríos Pérez said that his sister and her husband were going to clean a new client’s home on Wednesday. The husband, who later described the moments leading up to the shooting to Mr. Ríos Pérez, said that he had struggled to open the door and that his wife had then taken the keys from him, teasing him for not being able to get it unlocked. Seconds later, she was shot in the head, Mr. Ríos Pérez said.

The family later discovered that the house they had been hired to clean was behind the one they had tried to enter, he said.

[bamagal62]

1. Just awful.

You just never know now. It’s sad that the first reaction of the homeowner(s) was to shoot. It would have been so simple just to ask. Now someone’s husband, mother, sister, or friend is dead.

[Igel]

7. First response was to call 911.

Not shoot.

I also don't know what was going through the shooter's head, what the evaluation of the relative risk was. Were there stories about home invasion robberies? Burglaries in the area? Did the shooter suspect that maybe the would-be intruders were armed--perhaps with a gun, perhaps knife or mace or just a club or fists? How old was the shooter? 75? 35?

Dunno. The police pointed out that with a breakdown in community standards as to what's 'reasonable' there's a larger problem. (Research has been done on how community cohesion breaks down when competing values are held by the community members. Takes a surprisingly small percentage of the population to be at odds with the dominant culture for that to happen. For many younger adults, that kind of tension is just normal and worth it, even as they express a lot of alienation towards society--they don't know anything else but humans are wired for cohesive social groups.)

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

2. If this tragedy was due to an erroneous app, I hope the husband sues the app maker (Google Maps?) out of business.

Never, ever trust a cellphone/computer app to be accurate regarding addresses.

[Igel]

8. Might be an address issue.

When I moved away from home and was looking for a rental with a buddy who also needed a roommate to share expenses we looked at places. "103B Griffith Street," for example, wasn't the house in front but the house or outside entrance in back through a gate. The problem was that the usual assumption is that the backyard goes with the house in front, not that there were two separate houses rented by the same owner, and that "103B" should be a side-by-side duplex or obvious set of houses. Not a house where the front and back were separated out so the back half's 'front door' faces the alley.

We appreciated the occasional sign that indicated that the "B" address was in the back.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. Actually, In The City Where I Grew Up ...

...if an address had a letter it meant the house was behind the other one. Duplexes have 2 separate numbered addresses in every time around here.
Apartments have one address, then the apartment #.
Apparently, the way addresses are assigned differs by locality.

[Kaleva]

10. How about suing the shooter?

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

14. Yes, that too.

[JohnnyRingo]

3. Owning a firearm comes with great responsibility.

That responsibility includes knowing your target before you pull the trigger. Shooting through a door is assault and shooting anyone just for being on your property is murder.

In a sane world one would have to know their life was in peril, unlikely if a cleaning crew jiggles the door handle. "Shoot first" is not an attitude for a gun owner and often leads to charges.

[doc03]

4. If she was shot through the door by someone inside the house. I can't see

it being "Stand your gound"

[Kaleva]

12. This article says she was shot through the door

and had never entered the home.

https://fox59.com/news/prosecutor-weighs-whether-shooting-in-whitestown-that-killed-cleaning-lady-was-justified-under-the-law/amp/

[Prairie_Seagull]

5. First heard this on Thom Hartmann.

I believe this type of 'accidental shootings' would be lessened by an insurance policy or rider to homeowners insurance. To cover the liabilities involved with gun ownership. When an individual or home is covered an insurance company would try to lessen their own liability by assessing risk and applying mitigations.

Hope I have explained this correctly and well enough.

[JI7]

6. Reminds me of the Japanese student shot when he went to the wrong

house for a Halloween party.

This is the culture that got Charlie Kirk killed also.

[Iggo]

9. It's also the culture that Charlie Kirk promoted.

So fuck him.