Father Knows Best
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Good story, actually, in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: http://www.startribune.com/467/story/875873.html
Ex-boyfriend kicks in door, new boyfriend kills him
Erik Richter, armed with a loaded gun, broke into his ex-girlfriend's Wright County apartment after having threatened her. Samantha Simons' current boyfriend, Eric Cegon, shot him.
By Jim Adams, Star Tribune
Last update: December 14, 2006 – 10:22 PM
The crashing back door snapped Eric Cegon and his girlfriend awake in her apartment. Fear grew as they heard feet rapidly climbing the stairs to their barricaded bedroom door about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Cegon, 30, grabbed the shotgun next to their bed and sat up, hoping the locked door would hold. He said he knew the intruder was the man who had threatened his life and held a knife to his girlfriend a week earlier.
The girlfriend, Samantha Simons, covered up her 2-year-old son and screamed as her ex-boyfriend kicked in the door, knocking over the small dresser lodged against it.
"I knew if that door came open what I would do," Cegon said Thursday. He fired the 12-gauge shotgun he had borrowed from a friend two weeks before to protect himself. The blast knocked Erik A. Richter, 35, to the floor.
A loaded gun fell from his hand.
"You killed me," the couple recall Richter saying.
Cegon squeezed the trigger again.
"I shot him again to make sure he didn't get up," Cegon said. "I'll never forget the smell."
Simons, 21, said that Cegon had to do it or that Richter "would have killed us all."
His deadly break-in was the second time he had violated a court order not to contact his former girlfriend, Simons, or her new boyfriend, Cegon. Richter was scheduled to appear in court Wednesday on a terroristic threats charge for repeatedly threatening to kill Cegon since Nov. 4, when he broke Cegon's vehicle's windows, court records said. Richter is the father of Simons' son.
Cegon and Simons were questioned but not arrested, said Lt. Todd Hoffman of the Wright County Sheriff's Office.
County Attorney Thomas Kelly said that a week before Richter died, he threatened Simons with a kitchen knife and said he would kill Cegon. Richter was charged with assault in that case.
State law allows a person to defend himself or others in a home if the person believes he or she faces an imminent threat of great bodily harm or death, Kelly said. He said he will decide whether any charges are warranted against Cegon after the investigation is over and an autopsy done on Richter, who did not fire his handgun.
Cegon "may very well have been justified in taking another one's life," Kelly said. He added that Richter told Simons that he "refused to let her go, and said if he couldn't have her, nobody would."
Kelly said he wasn't aware of any drugs or alcohol being involved in Wednesday's altercation. He noted that Richter, of Watertown, was sentenced to four years in prison for a methamphetamine conviction in 1998.
On Thursday, Cegon and Simons recounted the harrowing shooting as they sat in her mother's townhouse in Rockford. Simons' mother, Sarah Wickstrom, kept an eye on her 2-year-old grandson, Jackson, who had just come inside after splashing in puddles. His trucks and toys were piled nearby under a Christmas garland of blue tinsel.
The couple said they had barricaded their bedroom door at night for the last week, expecting Richter to make good on his threats to kill Cegon. Simons said Richter had showed her a sawed-off shotgun with a special grip that he planned to use.
They expected him Tuesday night because he had a court date Wednesday on the terroristic threats made while he banged on the doors and windows of Cegon's parents' home in Rockford, where the couple were staying on Nov. 4.
The county attorney said Richter had posted $10,000 bail on the threats charge and apparently violated a condition of his release by threatening Simons with a knife Dec 6. A warrant had been issued for his arrest after that incident, Kelly said.
A judge could have sent Richter to jail for that release violation, and Simons said Richter didn't want to go back.
Cegon said that he had never used a gun before but that he decided to borrow a shotgun two weeks ago from a friend who showed him how to use it. He said he had met Richter while working at a feed elevator. Cegon said it felt like Richter had been hunting him for the past month.
After the predawn shooting, Cegon sat in fear, disbelief and shock. He said it happened less than a minute after they heard the back door kicked in, ripping off the security chain. He said he shot Richter in the chest from about 5 feet. He continued to hold the gun on him while handing the phone to Simons to call 911.
"I was crying, and they said to calm down," Simons recalled of the call. "I said my ex-boyfriend broke into the house and we shot him."
Cegon put the shotgun back in its case and went to let police into the house in the 8800 block of Walnut Place.
"We didn't want any problems with him," Cegon said. "I didn't do it. He did it to himself."
He said he won't keep a gun in his home anymore.
"I never had one. I never hunted. I never wanted one," he said, as Simons held his hand. She said she has had nightmares and went to see a doctor about sleeping medicine Thursday. She said that she won't return to her apartment and that she has given notice to the landlord.
Simons said her son woke up during the shooting and asked for a bottle. She hopes he doesn't remember the night his father died.
"I covered his eyes, so he didn't see. I hope he doesn't remember any of this," she said. "It's not going to be a good Christmas."
Added Wickstrom, her mother: "I just thank God that my daughter and my grandson are still here."
Jim Adams • 612-673-7658 • [email protected]
). That threat is gone, so he feels he doesn't need a gun anymore.
