Sarah McKinley was 18 years old and had just buried her husband when she heard banging on the door.
It was the night of December 31, 2011, in a mobile home in Blanchard, Oklahoma. Her husband had died of cancer days earlier, on Christmas Day. Alone with her three-month-old son, she pushed a sofa against the entrance, grabbed a shotgun, and dialed 911. For 21 minutes, she asked the operator whether she could shoot the man trying to get in. The answer was precise: she could not authorize her, but she had to do whatever was necessary to protect her baby.
Justin Shane Martin, 24, managed to break down the door armed with a 30-centimeter hunting knife. Sarah fired, and he died at the scene. His accomplice, Dustin Louis Stewart, fled but eventually turned himself in; he was charged with first-degree murder even though he never fired a weapon. The Grady County District Attorney’s Office did not file charges against the young mother: it determined that she acted in self-defense.
