Malone LaVeigh
Member
'She was a better shot'
Saucier woman kills robber in yard
By ROBIN FITZGERALD
[email protected]
GULFPORT - A Saucier woman who shot an armed robber in self-defense has not been charged in the man's death, said authorities, who confirmed the case will be presented to a grand jury as a routine matter.
Bobby Earl Hardy, 31, was shot several times after he assaulted the woman's husband and fired shots at the couple in their yard on Bell Lane, said Sheriff George H. Payne Jr. The woman told investigators she grabbed her personal weapon and fired back.
"She was a better shot than the robber," Payne said.
Payne described the woman as a 73-year-old grandmother of four with two great-grandchildren.
Neighbors identified her as Beth Greer. She was not available for comment.
The case is believed to be the first of its type in the region since the state's deadly-force law became effective July 1.
The new law clarified what constitutes justifiable or excusable homicide, but self-defense cases in the past have been "a common sense" issue, said District Attorney Cono Carana.
The law allows the use of deadly force for protection on one's property, including at a home or business or in a vehicle. It doesn't apply to the use of deadly force against a law enforcement officer.
"I want people to know you have the right to protect yourself, especially from a robber that's shooting at you," Payne said.
Hardy had been out of prison since May after serving two years for an armed robbery in Gulfport, according to state prison records. That robbery was in 2003 at the Lyman Quick Stop. Hardy also had served time for aggravated assault.
Investigators believe Hardy approached the couple around 11 p.m. Monday after they arrived home from their Gulfport business.
"It appears he either followed them or was waiting on them to get out of their vehicle," Payne said. "He attempted to rob them, shot at both the husband and the wife and struck the husband upside the head with a gun. He was coming at the female in her garage after he'd shot at the husband."
Hardy fled, Payne said, but turned up at a hospital, where he died. Greer drove her husband to a different hospital; he was treated and released.
It wasn't clear Tuesday if an accomplice was involved in the botched robbery or how Hardy got to the hospital.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/15785046.htm
Except for the first line of the story. this was pretty good coverage, if you ask me.
