Dallas Man Charged With Murder After Shooting Alleged Robber Then Going Back to Bed

An elderly Dallas man is accused of fatally shooting a suspected burglar then going back to bed before calling the police. 

According to the Dallas Morning News, Dallas police arrested 72-year-old James Michael Meyer on murder charges this Friday. Per the arrest warrant, police arrived at Meyer’s home to find a dead male face down in the park behind his house. Emergency responders concluded that the man had been dead for quite some time. When asked about the victim, Meyer claims he was awakened at 5 a.m. and saw the man trying to break into his house with a pickaxe. Meyer reportedly grabbed his gun, left his house, and told the man not to come closer or he’d shoot, at which point the man ran towards the park. While the man was running away, Meyer’s fired a “shot in the night.”

Because Meyer didn’t know if he struck anyone and the man had run away, he decided to go back to bed. Upon realizing the man was dead, he called his attorney then turned himself into the police. However, Meyer’s neighbors contradict his account. They claimed to have heard three shots and not one. Meyer also threw away the spent shell casings in the trash. This, in addition to Meyer firing the shot despite the fact “the threat of serious bodily injury against him was over when the complainant dropped the pickaxe and ran off” led the police to charge him with murder.