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Sutherlin man indicted after shooting intruder
Friday, July 25, 2008 | 1 comment(s)
ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) — A Douglas County grand jury indicted a Sutherlin man who shot and killed a home intruder last month.
Keith Cramer, 34, faces charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the death of Michael Shane Smith.
An arrest warrant has been issued, and Cramer will likely be arraigned today, the News-Review newspaper reported on its Web site.
According to police accounts, Cramer’s wife found the stranger passed out on the family’s couch and summoned her husband from a bar.
Cramer said that what happened next was self-defense. According to a search warrant affidavit, he told officers: “He beat me up, so I shot him. This is my house. He’s an intruder.”
Two Sutherlin police officers entered the home after the June 19 shooting and found the 35-year-old Smith. He was “lying on his side with his feet propped up on the couch, facing the center of the living room,” the affidavit states.
Investigators said Smith appeared to have been shot in the chest with a high-powered hunting rifle.
Smith lived in Alaska, but had been in Sutherlin for several weeks mourning the May 29 death of his mother. A friend said Smith had been drinking heavily on the night of the shooting and might have become disoriented while walking back to his stepfather’s house.
Smith had been at the same bar as Cramer, but it does not appear the men knew each other.
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Information from: The News-Review, http://www.oregonnews.com
Keith Cramer, 34, faces charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the death of Michael Shane Smith.
An arrest warrant has been issued, and Cramer will likely be arraigned today, the News-Review newspaper reported on its Web site.
According to police accounts, Cramer’s wife found the stranger passed out on the family’s couch and summoned her husband from a bar.
Cramer said that what happened next was self-defense. According to a search warrant affidavit, he told officers: “He beat me up, so I shot him. This is my house. He’s an intruder.”
Two Sutherlin police officers entered the home after the June 19 shooting and found the 35-year-old Smith. He was “lying on his side with his feet propped up on the couch, facing the center of the living room,” the affidavit states.
Investigators said Smith appeared to have been shot in the chest with a high-powered hunting rifle.
Smith lived in Alaska, but had been in Sutherlin for several weeks mourning the May 29 death of his mother. A friend said Smith had been drinking heavily on the night of the shooting and might have become disoriented while walking back to his stepfather’s house.
Smith had been at the same bar as Cramer, but it does not appear the men knew each other.
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Information from: The News-Review, http://www.oregonnews.com
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