REUTERS/Rebecca Cook
The Detroit-area homeowner who fatally shot 19-year-old Renisha McBride on his front porch when she came looking for help after her car crashed has been convicted of second-degree murder. Prosecutors characterized Theodore Wafer as an angry, paranoid man who loaded up a Mossberg 500 shotgun and kept it handy after he suspected that neighborhood kids were vandalizing his car with paint balls. Wafer testified that he feared for his life after hearing banging on his side and front doors, then fired through the screen door, striking McBride, whom he says jumped from the side into his view. Witnesses near the crash scene of McBride’s car describe the teen as bloody, dazed and disoriented when she left in the direction of Wafer’s neighborhood around 1 a.m. “So devastating,” Wafer testified on Monday. “This poor girl. She had her whole life in front of her. I took that from her.”