Georgia Mother Opens Fire on Home Intruder

Jan. 7, 2013
The Loganville mother sent the man to the hospital with five gunshot wounds.

A Loganville mother hiding with her two children in a crawlspace of their home opened fire on a suspected intruder Friday afternoon, sending him to the hospital with five gunshot wounds.

The 37-year-old woman, whose name was not released by the Walton County Sheriff's Department, at first assumed the knocks on her front door were from a solicitor and told her 9-year-old twins not to answer, said Walton County Sheriff Joe Chapman.

When the visitor began repeatedly ringing the doorbell, the woman, who works at home, called her husband at work. He told her to "get the kids and hide."

While the husband dialed 911, the woman collected her children and hid with them in a crawlspace adjoining her attic office. By that time, the intruder had forced his way into the three-story residence on Henderson Ridge Drive with a crowbar, authorities said. He allegedly rummaged through the home, eventually working his way up to the office.

"He opens the closet door and finds himself staring down the barrel of a .38 revolver," Chapman said.

The woman fired six bullets, five of which hit Paul Ali Slater in the face and neck area, the sheriff said.

Slater was still conscious, the sheriff said, but the woman told him to stay face down or she'd shoot again. The intruder, unaware she was out of ammunition, complied as the mother and children ran to a neighbor's house.

The wounded suspect eventually made it out of the home and into his car before deputies arrived on the scene, Chapman said, but he didn't get far.

"When you got five bullets in you, it makes you kind of disoriented," Chapman said.

Deputies found Slater bleeding profusely in a neighbor's driveway. He was transported to Gwinnett Medical Center and was expected to survive, the sheriff said.

Slater, a Long Island native who now lives in Gwinnett County, was released from jail there in late August after serving six months for simple battery and three counts of probation violation. Slater has six other arrests in Gwinnett dating back to 2008, according to jail records.

"My wife's a hero," the woman's husband told Channel 2 Action News.

"That mother's instinct kicked in," Chapman said. "You go after a mother's kids and she'll find herself capable of doing things she never thought she was capable of."

Copyright 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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