An 85-year-old Idaho woman shot and killed an intruder in her home in what a county prosecutor called “one of the most heroic acts of self-preservation I have ever heard of.”
Bingham County Prosecutor Ryan Jolley, in a case review, said that the woman, identified Wednesday as Christine Jenneiahn, acted in self-defense and ruled it was a case of justifiable homicide.
“That Christine survived this encounter is truly incredible,” Jolley wrote in the review. “Her grit, determination, and will to live appear to be what saved her that night.”
According to the review, posted on Facebook by the Bingham County Sheriff’s Office, an intruder, identified as Derek Condon, broke into Jenneiahn’s home on March 13 at around 2 a.m.
Jenneiahn told prosecutors she was asleep in her Bingham County home at the time of the break-in when she was awoken by an intruder who was wearing a military jacket and black ski mask and was pointing a gun and flashlight at her.
She said her disabled son was also home at the time.
The review says that Condon likely hit Jenneiahn in her head while she was in bed, since Jenneiahn said she’d been hit and because investigators found blood on her pillow and on the floor of her bedroom.
Condon then handcuffed Jenneiahn and took her to the living room at gunpoint, according to the review. Once there, he handcuffed her to a wooden chair and asked about her valuables. When she said she didn’t have much, he put his gun to her head, the review said.
According to the review, Jenneiahn told Condon she had two safes downstairs. He left her handcuffed in the living room as he looked through several rooms of her home in search of her valuables, prosecutors said.
“At some point,” the review states, “he discovered that Christine’s son was also in the home and became angry at Christine for not telling him.”
Condon then started to make numerous threats that he wanted to kill Jenneiahn, according to the review.
While Condon was searching the downstairs of Jenneiahn’s…
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