A Detroit-area homeowner found guilty for shooting and killing an unarmed woman on his porch was sentenced to at least 17 years in prison on Wednesday, The New York Times reported.
Theodore P. Wafer was tried and convicted for the death of 19-year-old Renisha McBride, whom he shot through the locked screen door as she stood on the front porch of his Dearborn Heights home on Nov. 2, 2013.
Prosecutors asked that Wafer, 55, be sentenced to 17 years following his Aug. 7 conviction for second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and felony weapon possession.
Wafer told the court he was sleeping in his living room at around 4:30 a.m. Nov. 2 when he was roused by loud banging on his doors. Afraid it was an intruder, Wafer frantically searched for his loaded Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun.
"I was upset," the airport maintenance worker said, according to The NY Times. "I had a lot of emotions. I was scared. I had fear. I was panicking."
The banging continued at the front door, moved to his side door and then returned to the front. Wafer opened the front door, saw a "figure" through the locked screen door and open fired, killing McBride.
Before she was killed, McBride got into a car accident where she hit a parked vehicle half a mile from Wafer's home at around 1 a.m. Witnesses said she was bleeding and she appeared dazed, but she declined help from bystanders and fled the scene. An autopsy later revealed she was intoxicated, the Associated Press reported.
It is not clear what happened to McBride from the accident until 4:30 a.m. when she approached Wafer's home in an apparent cry for help, prosecutors said.
Her murder raised speculation that race was involved- McBride was black and Wafer is white. But race was barely mentioned throughout the trial, and Wayne County Judge Dana Hathaway said she doesn't believe race was involved when she sentenced Wafer to a maximum of 32 years.
Wafer told Hathaway that McBride was "too young to leave this world," the AP reported.
"I will carry that guilt and sorrow forever," he said.
