Claim:   Two armed illegal aliens perpetrating a home invasion were killed by an 11-year-old girl.

Status:   False.

Example:   [Collected on the Internet, April 2007]

Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez 23 and Enrico Garza 26, probably believed they would easily overpower a home alone 11 year old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two story home. It seems the two crooks never learned two things, they were in Montana and Patricia had been a clay shooting champion since she was nine. Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father's room and grabbed his 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun. Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor only to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buck shot from the 11 year olds knee crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals. When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive. It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45 caliber handgun he took from another home invasion robbery. The victim, 50 year old David Burien, was not so lucky as he died from stab wounds to the chest.

Origins:   The above-quoted story about two armed illegal aliens killed during an attempted home invasion by an 11-year shotgun-wielding girl was posted to LibertyPost.org on 25 April 2007. Although the account is being widely cited as a validation of anti-illegal immigration and/or pro-gun ownership positions, confirmation of the tale as a real-life incident is lacking.

The only documentation for this item appears to be numerous web sites all citing the same information, with no details of time or place (other than a reference to Montana). Searches of news databases (including Montana-based newspapers) fail to turn up any corresponding news stories containing any of the four names provided and the name of one of the putative criminals ("Ralphel Resendez") just happens to echo an alias (Raphael Resendez-Ramirez) used by Angel Maturino Resendiz (also an illegal alien), the infamous "Railroad Killer."

Although many versions of this item cite the home invasion incident as having taken place in Butte, Montana, that area's sheriff has said no such thing occurred in that city:

When asked about the authenticity of the events described in this story, Butte-Silver Bow Sheriff John Walsh told The Montana Standard that his office never investigated such an incident.

"This never happened," Walsh said.

The story claims the girl shot and killed the two intruders while she was home alone. The story doesn't provide a street address or attribute the information to any official sources.

Walsh brushed off the story as an urban myth.

"It's amazing how these things get around," he said.

The only news story (of recent vintage) we could turn up about a minor using a shotgun to kill two armed intruders attempting a home invasion robbery took place in December 2006 and involved a 17-year-old boy in Texas (rather than an 11-year-old girl in Montana):

An overnight home invasion robbery attempt in northeast Harris County ended in a hail of gunfire that left two suspects dead.

Investigators said a 17-year-old was home with his cousin when four armed men kicked in the door and started shooting.

The teen pulled out a shotgun of his own and fired back at the suspects, killing two of them.

Going back almost twenty years to 1988, we do find a news story about an 11-year-old shooting and killing two home intruders, but again the finer details don't quite match the example cited above:

Switzer, S.C. — An 11-year-old boy who had been left alone after school shot and killed two men as they tried to steal a videocassette recorder from his family's home, police said.

William Todd Knight, the son of Billy and Ann Knight, "acted very wisely," said Spartanburg County Coroner Jim Burnett. "His life was in danger, he looked for an escape and could not find one ... he was a very brave young man."

Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department Capt. John Blackwood said the boy was watching cartoons in his parents' bedroom Monday afternoon when he heard noises at the front door of the family's brick, ranch-style home.

Todd told officers he was scared, so he went to his room for the .22-caliber rifle his father had given him for Christmas and loaded four rounds.

He then went to the front door and saw a man he described as "rough" pounding on the door. The man finally left in a white Datsun.

Todd said he resumed watching cartoons and about 10 minutes later heard banging, this time at a dining room window.

He saw two men climbing through the dining room window. The boy said he went into the bathroom to climb out the window, but saw the white Datsun was parked in the back yard.

Todd told police he went back to the hallway, peeked around the corner into the den and was spotted by one of the intruders as they were taking the VCR.

Todd then fired three rounds at the men, who dropped the VCR and fled.

When police arrived, one of the dead men was found face down next to a woodpile in the back yard, approximately 50 to 75 feet from the house, while the second man was in the driver's seat of the white two-door Datsun.

Last updated:   14 December 2007

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2013 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson.
This material may not be reproduced without permission.
snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  

---

  Sources:

    Emeigh, John Grant.   "Fake Story Still Circulating on Internet."

    The Montana Standard.   13 December 2007.

    Associated Press.   "Boy, 11, Shoots, Kills 2 Intruders."

    The [Elyria, OH] Chronicle Telegram.   15 March 1988   (p. 6).

    KHOU-TV [Houston].   "Teen Shoots, Kills 2 Would-Be Robbers."

    28 December 2006.