A teen mom from Oklahoma shot and killed a home invader on New Year’s Eve after an operator from 911 told her she could defend herself and her infant son with force. Eighteen year old Sarah McKinley shot and killed Justin Martin with one gunshot wound when he forced his way into her home in Blanchard. He lunged at her with a hunting knife.
The home invasion occurred roughly one week after the woman’s husband died from cancer. One the day of her husband’s funeral, Martin supposedly knocked on McKinkley’s door, saying he was a neighbor who just wanted to say hello. McKinley did not open the door for him.
On December 31, 2011, Martin returned to the home with an accomplice, forcing their way into the home. McKinley called 911 when she heard the two men attempting to break into the house. McKinley, while on the phone with 911, barricaded herself in a bedroom with a 12-gauge shotgun and a pistol. She put a bottle in the mouth of her three-month-old son to keep him quiet.
“I’ve got two guns in my hand — Is it okay to shoot him if he comes in this door?” McKinley asked the 911 operator.
“I can’t tell you that you can do that, but you do what you have to do to protect your baby,” the dispatcher said when McKinley asked for a second time. The conversation with the 911 operator lasted 21 minutes as the two men forced their way into the home.
Martin was able to kick in the door and charge at McKinley with a knife as she fired a shot at him, before he could injure her or the baby. Martin was found slumped over a couch McKinley used to barricade the door. He was pronounced dead at the scene and also said that the use of force by McKinley was justified. Dustin Stewart, Martin’s accomplice, fled the scene at the sound of the gunshot but later turned himself into police. Stewart has been charged with burglary and murder. Stewart was charged with murder because a person was killed while a felony was being committed.