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DETROIT: Dearborn Heights man charged in shooting death Renisha McBride
Published: Friday, November 15, 2013
DETROIT — The Dearborn Heights man who allegedly shot Renisha McBride earlier this month will face charges.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced Friday morning her office is charging Theodore Paul Wafer, 54, with second-degree murder, manslaughter and felony use of a firearm.
If convicted, he would be sentenced to up to life in prison on the murder charge, a maximum of 15 years on the manslaughter charge and a mandatory two years on the felony use of a firearm charge.
Wafer is to be arraigned in 20th District Court. A criminal division clerk said shortly after the charges were announced that an arraignment time had not been set because the court was waiting for paperwork from Dearborn Heights police.
Wafer told police he accidentally shot McBride early Nov. 2. Her body was found on his front porch at the corner of West Outer Drive and Dolphin shortly after he called 911 and told a dispatcher he had shot someone.
McBride, 19, of Detroit was killed by a single gunshot to her head. An autopsy found she was not shot at close range.
McBride’s family believe she crashed into a parked car in Detroit, six blocks from where she died. They claimed witnesses encountered her, bleeding from the face and disoriented, shortly after the crash, but she walked away from the car she was driving.
Detroit police eventually came to the street where the crash occurred but McBride never returned.
She was killed about 2 1/2 hours after the crash.
A toxicology report released Thursday found McBride’s blood-alcohol level to be 0.218 percent. A driver with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent is considered legally drunk in Michigan. A “super drunk” designation applies when a person’s blood-alcohol level is 0.17 percent or higher. In McBride’s case, because she was younger than 21, the law says there’s zero tolerance for alcohol.
There also was marijuana in her system.
Southfield attorney Gerald Thurswell, who is representing McBride’s family, said Thursday her condition was immaterial.
“If she was intoxicated, it makes her even less of a threat,” he said. “(Wafer) was safe in his house — all he had to do was call 911. Had he done that, Renisha would still be alive and probably would’ve been arrested for public intoxication.”
The incident stirred comparisons to the February 2012 death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, who was shot and killed after a confrontation with another man. The man who killed him, George Zimmerman, was acquitted of second-degree murder charges after claiming the state’s “stand-your-ground” law allowed him to defend himself.
Protesters gathered at the Dearborn Heights Justice Center earlier this month, but Thurswell and members of McBride’s family urged patience while Worthy’s office researched information about the shooting.
Michigan State Police also investigated the circumstances that led to McBride’s death.
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