Markus Kaarma’s Botched Home Defense

By: Shawn Vincent

Markus Kaarma, a homeowner in Missoula, Montana, shot an intruder in his garage on April 27, 2014. Ten days earlier, Kaarma and his partner, Janelle Pflager, had been the victims of a burglary. While Kaarma and Pflager slept, someone entered their open garage and stole an iPhone, a wallet, and credit cards. The couple’s neighbor, a former law enforcement officer, told Pflager it looked like a “crime of opportunity,” and he suggested they lock their doors and keep the garage shut.

Kaarma and Pflager didn’t take the advice. Instead, according to court documents, they installed video baby monitors in the garage, planted a purse, and intentionally left the garage doors partially open in an attempt to lure the burglars back inside. In a recorded statement, Kaarma admitted that Pflager “probably wanted to catch the burglars.” Testimony revealed that, a few days before the shooting, while getting a haircut, Kaarma said he was tired because he had stayed up three nights straight while “waiting to kill some (expletive) kids.”

On April 27, Kaarma stayed up late again. Around midnight, the baby monitors detected a dark figure lurking in the garage. Kaarma grabbed a loaded shotgun that he kept on the ground by the front door. He exited the house and fired four shots into the darkened garage. Two shots missed the intruder. One struck them in the arm. The fourth and final shot proved fatal.

The intruder turned out to be Diren Dede, a seventeen-year-old foreign exchange student who had learned about “garage hopping” from his new American friends. Dede had likely entered Kaarma’s garage hoping to find beer in an outside refrigerator. He was unarmed.

Both Pflager and Kaarma made detailed statements to police. Pflager, during an eight-hour interview, said she heard Dede cry out, “No, no, no, please wait!” before the final shot—although she changed her testimony at trial. During his interrogation, Kaarma explained his decision to shoot by saying, “I am going to die because someone’s life is about to be over. Their life is not going to be worth living, and they would probably kill to get away.” While in jail, Kaarma spoke to Pflager on the phone and said, “Everyone should rejoice that our neighborhood is safer.”

At 9 A.M. on the morning after the shooting, detective Barker from the Missoula Police Department arrested Kaarma for a charge of “deliberate homicide,” which is equivalent to first-degree murder in many other states. Kaarma, confident he was within his rights to defend his home, asked, “How is that deliberate homicide?” The detective replied, “It’s just the way the statute reads.” Eight months later, a jury found Kaarma guilty. He received a 70-year prison sentence. In 2015, Kaarma settled a civil suit with Dede’s parents for an undisclosed sum.

 

Kaarma made several mistakes in the shooting of Diren Dede. Here are a few key lessons for armed defenders:

Understand the Legal Consequences (Lesson 3): Kaarma clearly did not understand the use of force statutes in Montana. He likely believed that the Castle Doctrine gave him broad legal protection to use deadly force against an intruder, and he didn’t realize how his actions would undermine his self-defense claim and lead to a charge of deliberate homicide. He also probably didn’t suspect that his actions could carry civil consequences that would negatively impact the lives of his partner and baby. 

 

The Threat Must Be Imminent and Serious (Lesson 4): Kaarma didn’t know who was in his garage, and he couldn’t see them well enough to establish whether they posed an imminent and serious threat. He fired blindly at an unarmed intruder, and a jury found his actions were not reasonable under the circumstances.

 

Don’t Get Emotionally Hijacked (Lesson 8): Kaarma and Pflager expressed their rage over being burglarized to several people, and that rage fueled their efforts to exact revenge by staging the garage to lure a would-be burglar so they could feel justified in using deadly force to, as Kaarma said, “kill some (expletive) kids.”

 

Don’t Leave a Place of Safety to Confront a Threat (Lesson 14): Kaarma and his family were relatively safe in their home. Kaarma could have made sure the doors were locked, moved his family to a safer interior room, called 9-1-1, and waited to see if the intruder tried to force his way into the living space. Instead, he left a place of relative safety to confront the intruder in his dark garage.

 

Don’t Use Deadly Force to Protect Property (Lesson 26): Home defense is about protecting the family in a home—not the house itself or the contents inside. While Dede was technically an intruder, he had not forcibly entered the property, nor had he entered the interior of the home where Kaarma’s partner and baby were. Kaarma used his firearm to stop a potential burglary, not to protect his family.

 

Don’t Give In-Depth Statements to Police (Lesson 31): Both Kaarma and Pflager gave detailed statements to police without the counsel of a lawyer, and they both said things that adversely impacted Kaarma’s legal defense.

 

Don’t Say Foolish Things (Lesson 33): Kaarma said things in the days leading up to the shooting that telegraphed his desire to get revenge for the burglary he and Pflager had suffered. He also said incriminating things while speaking to Pflager during monitored and recorded jailhouse telephone conversations. Prosecutors used those statements against him in a court of law.