Home defense.

Charles Cryderman owns a paint store in Gardnerwille, Nevada. Shortly before 11:30 p.m. on August 2nd, he and his family were asleep at home when Cryderman heard the front doorknob being rattled.

He went to the door, opened it, and found a stranger on the porch. When the man asked to see someone, Cryderman told him, "Look, there's no one here by that name, and I don't even know anyone by that name." The man began acting irrationally, so Cryderman locked the door and moved his wife and children to another room for safety. He then called 911 to report that the man was now throwing bricks through a window. Cryderman told dispatchers that he was going to get his gun, a .357-caliber revolver.

The enraged stranger, later identified as Walter Hetrick, went to a side door, broke into the home, and began moving toward Cryderman in a menacing manner. The homeowner fired five shots, three of which found their mark, wounding Hetrick in the left leg, left hip, and left shoulder. When police arrived, they found Hetrick lying just inside the side entrance. He was taken by ambulance to a nearby medical center and was pronounced dead shortly after midnight.

According to Douglas County Sheriff Ron Pierini, Hetrick had been arrested on drug charges as recently as January of this year, but was released from state supervision a few months later. In March 1985, he was convicted for the October 1984 shooting death of his best friend. Sentenced to 27-years-to-life incarceration, he was initially sent to Atascadero State Hospital for the criminally insane. From time to time over a decade he was also in and out of other institutions on sundry supervised programs. The circumstances of his eventual release were not immediately clear.