LITHIA, Fla. – A pregnant Florida woman who came out wielding an AR-15 rifle reportedly saved her husband and pre-teen daughter last week from a pair of violent intruders who’d broken into the family’s home. The gun-toting woman, who is eight-months pregnant, fatally struck one of the violent suspects. He was later found dead in a nearby ditch.
Jeremy King was at his home in Lithia, 25 miles southeast of Tampa, at 9 p.m. Wednesday night when two armed men, wearing masks and hoods, broke inside.
“As soon as they had got the back door opened, they had a pistol on me and was grabbing my 11-year-old daughter,” King told Bay News 9. “I’m telling them, ‘I have nothing for you,’ and they’re like, ‘Give me everything you got.’ It became real violent, real fast.”
King said one of the suspects pistol-whipped him and another kicked him in the head, creating a commotion that attracted the attention of his wife, who walked into the room to see what the noise was — and soon found herself dodging a bullet.
The woman, who was not identified, reportedly retreated and grabbed an AR-15 that was legally inside their house, returning to the room and shooting the intruders, hitting one of them.
“When he came toward the back door in her line of sight, she clipped him,” King said of his wife. “He made it from my back door to roughly 200 feet out in the front ditch before the AR did its thing.”
The man was later found dead in the ditch, according to the news outlet. The other armed robber fled when his accomplice was shot.
“Them guys came in with two normal pistols and my AR stopped it. [My wife] evened the playing field and kept them from killing me,” King said, noting he suffered a fractured eye socket, a fractured sinus cavity and a concussion, and needed “20 stitches and three staples in my head.”
Neither of the intruders was publicly identified by authorities, Fox News reported.
Anyone with information on the incident or the suspect’s whereabouts is urged to contact the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office at 813-247-8200.
(Feature image: Tony Webster)
