Killings raise self-defense queries

Metro Police and the district attorney's office were wrestling today with the question of self-defense after a Sunday morning incident in which two intruders were shot and killed.

"Right now it is a jump-ball question," Metro Homicide Sgt. Kevin Manning said this morning. "I talked with the DA's office, and they had no problem with us not arresting the resident."

Calling the fact pattern "touchy," Assistant District Attorney Charles Thompson today said his office is "going to think long and hard about this one."

The incident occurred at 400 Lakehurst Road near Alta and Buffalo Drives at about 9:30 a.m., when the resident, whose name has not yet been released, arrived home and found two intruders in the home, police said.

The resident broke away from the two intruders, who beat the resident and attacked him with electronic stun guns, police said.

The resident got a gun from the house and opened fire on his assailants, hitting both men, Manning said, noting that one man had at least one bullet wound in the back while the other had multiple gunshot wounds.

Both of the intruders fled, police said, with one falling in the resident's driveway from a gunshot wound. The other intruder fell at the corner of Lakehurst and Pinedale Avenue about 100 feet from Helen Marie Smith Elementary School after several more shots were fired, police said.

Police have tentatively identified one dead man but are not yet releasing his name. The other dead man is listed in the morgue only as "John Doe" -- police jargon for an unidentified male.

"It has always been my belief that you can't use deadly force once a threat to yourself or your property has passed," Thompson, who was a district judge for 20 years, said.

The law permits residents to repel attacks with "all necessary force" and they need not retreat, he said.

"You may resist force with force, increasing in proportion to an intruder's persistence," Thompson said. "But I don't think that once the threat to yourself or your property is gone that you can use deadly force."

He noted that the issues could change if the homeowner in this case was pursuing the robber with the intent of making a citizen's arrest and the death occurred as part of that effort.

"But I'm not sure where we're going to be on that, either," Thompson said. "We're going to have to do some research."

He said the DA's office won't even begin looking at matters until Metro Police homicide detectives submit the case for review and then there is no anticipated time frame for a decision.

In past cases of citizen-involved shootings, prosecutors have presented the facts to a Clark County grand jury for a determination on whether the individual situations warranted the filing of criminal charges.

"We weren't here when it happened, but it's pretty scary to come home and find out that two people were killed here," said a neighbor on Lakehurst. "It's normally pretty quiet around here."

The Lakehurst home is owned by Anna Marie Gaule, who lives in Pahrump, and her son, Tom, who lives at the house.

Authorities have had problems at the Gaule home before, with complaints of the property's appearance, especially in the backyard, which residents have referred to as a nightmarish junk pile.

In a May 1997 Sun story, Lakehurst residents said bugs emanating from the junk piles and the overall outrageous appearance of the property was a nightmare they'd been forced to endure for years. The Gaules also own a property on Evergreen Avenue that also had fallen into decay, according to records from the city of Las Vegas Neighborhood Services Department.

City code-enforcement officers have been dealing with the Lakehurst property, issuing citations since 1992. By January 1997, several outstanding bench warrants had been issued for the property's owner.

City officials today said they still were pursuing code-violation matters at the Lakehurst residence.

A neighbor today said a shed has been put up on the property, which has been cleaned up a little. The property, however, remains in pretty bad shape, the neighbor said.

Sun reporter Bill Gang contributed to this report.

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