By: Robert Davis
Keri Reeves, 30, a mother of two, was lying in her bed in Walhalla, South Carolina, with her dog when it became uncharacteristically aggressive.
Then, she saw a man walk through her dining room and toward her bedroom door.
“I started screaming, ‘Who are you?’ and ‘Get out’!” Reeves told Gunpowder Magazine.
The man blocked the doorway, leaving her only one escape route—out the bedroom window.
“He started telling me he’s been shot and he needs help,” Reeves said. “But he kept digging around in his pockets. I didn’t know if he had a gun or what.”
Reeves slowly backed away from the man and retrieved her .380, which she pointed at the intruder.
“I had it pointed right at his nose,” Reeves said. “Had I not had my gun, I might not be here to tell my story.”
Reeves followed the intruder, later identified by the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office as Richard Goss, 33, out of her house and watched as he ran into the woods in her backyard.
Once he was completely out of sight, Reeves called the police. She said the emotions of the situation hit her while she was on the phone. She was shaken.
Reeves said the burglar took $71 and two lighters. He left her credit cards, debit card, a diamond necklace, and all of her husband’s tools behind.
She later confronted Goss at his arraignment hearing.
“For him to invade my home, the space where I go to feel comfortable and to not be judged, I wanted him to know that he is not going to take my sense of security. I will not live in fear,” Reeves said.
Goss was charged with burglary second degree, petit larceny, and possession of burglary tools. His bond was set for $65,000.
Robert Davis is a journalist from Colorado. He covers defensive gun use and Second Amendment litigation for Gunpowder Magazine. Contact him at [email protected].
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