Three bullets failed to stop home intruder, records say
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
9/16/2003 11:26 pm
Like a scene in a horror movie, three bullets from Charles Cryderman’s .357 magnum revolver didn’t stop the intruder who broke into his Douglas County home Aug. 2, according to reports released Tuesday.
So Cryderman, 51, grabbed a shotgun out of his bedroom and, lacking shells for it, clubbed Walter Francis Hetrick, 40, over the head and upper torso hard enough to break the gun, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office reports said.
After the shotgun came apart, Cryderman “said he continued striking Hetrick with the butt of the shotgun as Hetrick crawled down the hallway towards the children’s bedroom,†one report said.
Cryderman could see Hetrick was “running out of gas,†the report said, and Cryderman pleaded with Hetrick to “stay there†and stop crawling down the hallway.
Moments later, sheriff’s deputies swarmed the home, handcuffing a bloody Hetrick and ending the trauma to Cryderman. His wife and their two children were hiding in a bathroom.
Hetrick later died in a hospital.
Recounting the incident later for investigators, Cryderman said it was like the movie “Friday the 13th†or “like Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining,’ †a report said.
Prosecutors said Aug. 29 they wouldn’t file criminal charges against Cryderman for the death of Hetrick, who spent most of the last 20 years in California psychiatric hospitals for the 1984 murder of a friend.
District Attorney Scott Doyle returned from vacation last week. The investigative reports were not released until Tuesday, after Doyle had reviewed the decision not to prosecute and also decided not to hold a coroner’s inquest, sheriff’s Sgt. Tom Mezzetta said.
Cryderman declined to comment Tuesday on the contents of the reports, which recount in detail what happened at the Log Cabin Road home.
Cryderman was watching television when Hetrick, whom he had never met, showed up at his door and asked, “Is Stacy here?†the reports said. Cryderman told him he had the wrong house.
The 6-foot-1, 230-pound Hetrick became angry, starting talking about rape and began pounding on the door, the reports said.
As Cryderman got his Smith & Wesson revolver from a bedroom, the noise at the front door stopped. Cryderman thought Hetrick might have left, the reports said.
Then Hetrick began banging on a side door, saw Cryderman was armed and yelled, “Put the gun down,†the reports said.
Hetrick threw a brick against the door and kicked it open. Cryderman fired, and the door slammed shut. Hetrick kicked the door open twice more, and Cryderman fired one shot both times, the reports said.
Hetrick “finally lunged into the residence,†the reports said, and Cryderman fired twice more, using up the five rounds in the six-shot revolver.
Cryderman, who had loaded the gun with Federal brand ammunition called Hydra-Shok, told investigators he kept one cylinder in the revolver empty and put the revolver hammer on that empty cylinder during storage.
Three of Cryderman’s five shots hit Hetrick: in the upper torso, the thigh and in the foot. The shot to the thigh ultimately proved fatal, severing Hetrick’s femoral artery.
But Hetrick still kept moving through the home, so Cryderman got his unloaded shotgun with over-and-under barfels. He had no ammunition, so with the gun still in the case he began beating Hetrick with it, the report said.
Hetrick grabbed the shotgun at one point and the two struggled over it, but Cryderman got it back and continued beating him, even after the case came open and the shotgun game apart, the reports said.
Two days after the break-in, investigators talked to Hetrick’s mother and aunt in Antioch, Calif.
Hetrick’s relatives showed investigators seven bottles of prescription medication Hetrick had stopped taking and his mother, Linda Minor, described him as a danger to himself and others when he stopped taking medication, the reports said.
. The wacko was slowed down enough to matter.
