From: [self defense owner] at [shell.portal.com]
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 16:46:19 -0700
Subject: SDN IL Elgin 1995 07 14

<confirmed incident>
Sender: [self defense owner] at [shell.portal.com]
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: 
Followup-To: [self defense editors] at [shell.portal.com]

     WHAT: Man Uses Gun to Defend Family
     WHEN: Wednesday, 14 July 1995
    WHERE: Elgin, Illinois
 APPEARED: Daily Herald, Arlington Heights, IL, 708-870-3600
CONFIRMED: Elgin Police Department, 708-931-6000


BRIEF DETAILS

George Kelly, 33, successfully used a 9mm handgun to defend his pregnant
wife and 7 year old daughter from a knife-wielding convicted criminal.

Joe Lewis, a criminal whose record included several convictions for
burglary and one for indecent liberties with a child, crept into the Kelly
home and waited in the shower with a butcher knife. When Kelly found Lewis
in the shower, the criminal began lunging at Kelly with the knife. Lewis
slashed Kelly across the left elbow, delivering a wound that later required
16 stitches to close.

Kelly fired his handgun at Lewis and struck him in the chest. The shot
didn't seem to immediately affect Lewis, however, Kelly ran out the back
door of his home hoping to attract Lewis away from his daughter Natalie and
his wife Tricia, who is five months pregnant.

Apparently, however, the criminal was more interested in the wife and
daughter. When Kelly got around to the front of the house, he could see
Lewis inside, leaning against a wall for support and threatening Tricia.
Kelly burst through the door and tackled Lewis, then ran upstairs to gather
his family.

Lewis barricaded himself in the first-floor nursery, where Elgin police
found him when they finally arrived. He was transported to a nearby
hospital where he died from his wounds.

Elgin police Lt. Scott Davis said the father, Kelly, will not be charged.
Davis said it was what police classify as a justifiable homicide.


COMMENTS

Another convicted criminal - loose on the streets - arms himself with a
butcher knife and breaks into the home of a young, pregnant mother and her
7-year-old little girl. Why was he waiting in the shower? What did he plan
to do?

Even more important, what would the father have done without a handgun?

Sarah Brady wants to take handguns away from families like the Kellys.
Imagine how this story would have been different if the father had been
unarmed. As it was, he received a gash that took 16 stitches to close.

What if the criminal's butcher knife had been the only weapon? With the
father out of the way, what would this convicted child molester have done?
What would have happened to the pregnant mother and her little girl?