"They need to hurry. He's going to break this thing open," Donna Jackson told a 911 dispatcher, according to the recording. "When he does, I'll have to kill him, and I don't want to kill him." The released call lets the listener hear Jackson waiting inside her home as the man outside tried to get through the door.
The released 911 call Donna Jackson made as a man forced his way into her Lincoln County home.
Jackson, 57, had been in bed shortly before 12:30 a.m. on Dec. 4, 2009, when her dogs began barking. At her rear patio door, she encountered a man who was pounding on the glass, cursing and threatening to hurt her. Jackson called 911, took a shotgun from a closet and remained connected to dispatchers while he attempted to enter the rural Lincoln County house south of Cushing, Oklahoma.
For nearly 10 minutes, the man struck and kicked the glass as Lincoln County dispatchers Brenda Hart and Joan Herd stayed on the call. Hart later said, "I could hear him banging the doors and yelling at her. I was scared for her."
The man eventually lifted a patio table and smashed the glass with it before stepping into the house. Jackson fired the shotgun once, hitting him in the chest. He fell backward, with his feet remaining inside the doorway. The gunshot killed him.
Investigators identified the man as Billy Dean Riley, 53, of Sparks, Oklahoma. Lincoln County Sheriff Chuck Mangion said Riley had crashed his pickup truck near Jackson's property not long before the break-in. Riley's sister was found passed out in the vehicle and was not involved in the attempted break-in. Investigators said Riley may have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs. They did not immediately know why he went to Jackson's home.
District Attorney Richard Smothermon examined the sheriff's investigation and listened to the 911 recording. On Dec. 8, 2009, he declined to file charges against Jackson. In a letter to Mangion, Smothermon wrote that the physical evidence supported her account, including glass fragments marked by prints from Riley's boots. He also wrote that Oklahoma law allowed her to use deadly force against a person forcibly entering her home. Jackson's family declined to comment on the shooting.
