Indiana homeowner charged with voluntary manslaughter for fatally shooting cleaning woman trying to enter wrong home. Claims self defense.
Indiana authorities have charged a Whitestown homeowner with voluntary manslaughter for fatally shooting a cleaning woman who mistakenly went to the wrong home, prosecutors announced Monday, nearly two weeks after the mother of four was killed.
The suspect, Curt Douglas Andersen, 62, was on Monday booked into the Boone County jail on a no bond hold and will appear in court sometime this week, prosecutors said.
Homeowner not afforded legal protections provided by Indiana Stand Your Ground law
The Boone County prosecutor, Kent Eastwood, said the decision to file the charge follows a ‘comprehensive examination,’ in which his office determined Andersen’s actions did not fall under the legal protections provided by the Indiana Stand Your Ground law.
Indiana is one of 31 states with a stand-your-ground law that permits homeowners to use deadly force to stop someone they believe is trying to unlawfully enter their dwelling. But police said that there’s no evidence Rios entered the home before she was shot.
‘It’s our contention that the person did not have a reasonable belief that that type of force was necessary, given all the facts that he had at that time,’ Eastwood said during a press briefing on Monday.
‘We cannot allow emotion to guide our decisions,’ Eastwood said. ‘Our duty is to examine the facts and apply the law fairly and equally.’
The shooting occurred the morning of Nov. 5 just before 7 a.m, in a subdivision of Whitestown, located approximately 20 miles northwest of Indianapolis, police said.
Cleaning lady was shot with no warning as she turned key to enter wrong home
Officers responding to a 911 call reporting a possible home invasion found the woman dead on the front porch of the residence with a gunshot wound, Whitestown police said.
The gun had been fired from inside by a resident of the home, police said. A responding police officer saw a bullet hole in the front door of the residence, according to the probable cause affidavit.
Police later determined the victim, Maria Florinda Ríos Pérez de Velasquez, 32, of Indianapolis and her husband, Mauricio Perez-Velázquez a contracted cleaning unit had mistakenly arrived at the wrong address, and that ‘the facts gathered do not support’ that a home invasion occurred.
The Boone County Coroner’s Office said the victim, a Guatemalan immigrant died from a gunshot wound to the head, prosecutors stated citing the coroner’s office.
Andersen shot her through the front door with no warning about a minute after hearing someone trying to unlock the door, according to a probable cause statement, WOWT reported.
Homeowner hires attorney specializing in second amendment
Eastwood said his office started a review of the case on Nov. 10 following a ‘thorough and professional’ police investigation, which included taped witness statements and crime scene diagrams.
Rios’ husband, Mauricio Velasquez, told investigators that she tried to open the door with keys from their cleaning company, but they unknowingly were at the wrong address. He said they’d been trying to open the door for 30 seconds to a minute before she was shot.
He said they never heard any voices from inside or saw any movement. The couple didn’t knock, bang on the door or use force of any kind to enter the home and they never got inside, he said.
Velasquez’s husband told WRTV that he and his wife had been cleaning homes for seven months and he was with her when she was shot.
‘I never thought it was a shot, but I realized when my wife took two steps back, she looked like she’d been hit in the head,’ her husband told WRTV in Spanish.
‘She fell into my arms, and I saw the blood. It went everywhere,’ he told the station.
The couple have four children, the youngest 11 months old.
Anderson’s attorney, a second amendment specialist responding to prosecutor’s decision to file charges, said they were ‘disappointed,’ while noting that they ‘look forward to proving in court that his actions were fully justified by the ‘castle doctrine’ provision of Indiana’s self-defense law.’
Curt Douglas Anderson killed Maria a cleaning lady who was given the wrong address! She went to work with her husband & as she’s trying to open the door you can hear the gun shot ring out! Her husband was behind her & caught her in his arms,but unfortunately she passed away.🤬 pic.twitter.com/wJro9IelkU
— Suzie rizzio (@Suzierizzo1) November 17, 2025
What is the Castle Doctrine?
‘Contrary to the contention of the prosecutor — and without discussing the specific facts of the case — we believe Mr. Andersen had every reason to believe his actions were absolutely necessary and fully justified at the time,’ the attorney, Guy Relford, said in a statement. ‘We also believe that Mr. Andersen’s actions are being unfairly judged based on facts that were unknowable to him as events unfolded that early morning.’
‘The law does not allow a criminal conviction based on hindsight,’ Relford continued. ‘Instead, Mr. Andersen’s actions must be evaluated based on the circumstances as he perceived them. For all these reasons, the castle doctrine clearly applies and I look forward to defending Mr. Andersen in court.’
‘Castle doctrine’ is a legal principle in many U.S. states (and some other countries) that allows the use of force—including sometimes deadly force—to defend oneself in your home (your “castle”) without a legal duty to retreat.
The law stipulates the intruder entering unlawfully and forcibly, and the ‘reasonable’ belief of intention to cause death, serious injury, or commit a violent felony.
Stand-your-ground protections don’t apply because Andersen lacked enough information to know if his actions were reasonable, Eastwood said.
The prosecutor said he planned to prove that Andersen couldn’t have reasonably believed he needed to use deadly force, given what he knew at the time.
Prosecutors claim homeowner did not have reasonable belief that force was necessary
The homeowner told police that he woke up due to a ‘commotion’ at his front door that sounded like someone was trying to get inside. He said he saw two people at the front door and thought they were breaking into his home, so he went to retrieve his gun, according to the affidavit.
‘Curt described the individuals were ‘thrusting’ at the front door to get in with what he described as getting more and more aggressive,’ the affidavit stated.
At that point, he shot toward the closed front door of the residence, according to the affidavit. A spent cartridge casing was found on the stairs inside the home, according the affidavit.
The victim’s husband told police he never heard anyone speak inside the home, ‘just the one shot,’ and he did not use any force to try to enter the residence or bang on the door, according to the affidavit.
Curt Anderson, Indiana homeowner fearing break-in went into combat mode
An attorney for Velasquez’s family, said the charge is an ‘important step towards accountability, truth and justice, and it’s a step that Maria’s family deserves.’
‘On the morning Maria was killed, she was simply arriving to clean a home,’ the attorney, Alex Limontes, told reporters Monday while joined by members of her family, including her husband. ‘As we all know, Maria never made it inside the house. She was shot through a closed door.’
In a statement read by Limontes, the victim’s family said they ‘demand justice so that other families do not have to go through what we are going through.’
Jody Madeira, an Indiana University law professor who specializes in gun rights, stated that the public can legally access private property — including a front porch — for a legitimate purpose until they are told to leave, Madeira said. For example, a homeowner can’t legally shoot a pizza delivery person or an Amazon driver just for stepping onto their property, she said.
Madeira said Monday that the allegations in the probable cause statement show that Curt Andersen was acting out of fear but that’s not enough to invoke the stand-your-ground law. There was no unlawful entry and trying to insert a key into a lock or rattling a doorknob isn’t a reasonable justification for firing a shot, she said.
‘The reasonable person says, ‘hey, I have my phone here, I have other options, I can shout a warning. It’s 7 a.m., is someone really breaking into my house? He jumped up from bed and immediately went into I’m combatting a break-in.’
