Hazy sunshine with some areas of high-altitude smoke from those western wildfires hanging around for one more day. Warmer and still comfortable. .
STROUD TWP., Pa. - The survivor of a double shooting at a home in the Poconos told her story to a jury at the Monroe County Courthouse Wednesday.
Her boyfriend did not survive the shooting last year, but the man who pulled the trigger is claiming self-defense under Pennsylvania's Castle Doctrine. The Castle Doctrine says you have the right to defend yourself in your own home with deadly force, but there are some requirements. The person you're using deadly force against has to be breaking in, and you have to be in fear for your life or personal safety.
Wednesday morning the defense questioned Chasity Frailey about how she and her boyfriend Adam Schultz got onto Randy Halterman's property on the 2000 block of Paradise Trail in Stroud Township on January 19, 2021. Frailey said the property appeared abandoned because it was covered in junk, but the defense said there was a no trespassing sign posted, and there was a chain or a rope over the driveway.
Frailey said she didn't remember the no trespassing sign or the rope, but in her interview with police shortly after the shooting, she mentioned the rope.
"We looked at the driveway. We didn't see any cars. We saw like an old rope thing, there was all these weeds," said Frailey in that interview.
The defense also brought out an exhibit of a piece of wood they said was keeping the front door shut. Frailey admitted on the stand that Schultz removed the door stopper in order to get into the house.
The defense also showed text messages between Frailey and Schultz, where Schultz mentioned he was trying to get a crowbar. Frailey said on the stand she didn't see him with a crowbar while on Halterman's property. The defense also showed Schultz was a motorcycle enthusiast, and Halterman's property had several old motorcycles on it. There was even a clip of a detective telling Frailey in an interview that the shooting appeared to him like a burglary gone bad.
But even if the judge agrees with the defense's argument that Frailey and Schultz broke into Halterman's home, they still need to prove he feared for his life. Neither Frailey nor Schultz were armed, and Frailey told investigators in an interview shortly after the shooting that Schultz surrendered before he was shot.
"Adam said, he put his hands up and he said please stop. He said we didn't know anybody was here, we said hello, we knocked. And he was literally on his knees and the guy shot him," said Frailey.
After the shooting, Halterman called 911 and admitted to the dispatcher he had shot both Schultz and Frailey, and when police asked him to come outside, he said he didn't want to walk past the two of them. He also didn't put down his 22-caliber handgun until ordered by police.
The trial continues Thursday morning at the Monroe County Courthouse. Once all evidence has been presented, the judge will determine whether or not the Castle Doctrine applies to this case, and then the verdict will be left up to the jury.
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One of the intruders died, but the other, who was injured, took the stand Wednesday.
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