Woman shows up to clean a house, but it’s the wrong address. What the homeowner did next leaves her dead on the porch

Maria Florinda Rios Perez went to work on a normal Wednesday morning in November 2024. The 32-year-old woman worked as a house cleaner with her husband in Whitestown, Indiana. They had been doing this job for seven months. But that day, something went terribly wrong. The couple showed up at the wrong house by mistake. Minutes later, Maria was dead on the front porch.

Police got a call about someone trying to break into a home around 7:00 in the morning on November 6. When officers arrived at the house in the Heritage neighborhood, they found Maria on the porch with a gunshot wound to her head. Her husband Mauricio Velazquez was holding her. Paramedics tried to save her life, but she had already died. Police quickly figured out that this was not a break-in at all. Maria and her husband were just cleaners who went to the wrong address.

Someone inside the house fired a gun through the front door and hit Maria in the head. Mauricio told reporters that he did not even realize his wife had been shot at first, as per BBC. He said he saw her take two steps backward and then she fell into his arms. That is when he saw all the blood. The bullet hole was visible in the door, and police confirmed the door was never opened. Maria and her husband never went inside the house. Their actual cleaning job was supposed to be at a different home behind this one.

This whole situation has gotten really messy

Now prosecutors have to decide if the homeowner should face criminal charges. The problem is that Indiana has something called a stand your ground law. This law says people can use deadly force to protect their homes if they think someone is trying to break in. They do not have to run away or hide first. They can defend themselves right away.

But lawyers are asking if shooting through a closed door makes any sense in this situation. A law professor named Jody Madeira said that shooting blindly through a door usually leads to criminal charges unless there is strong proof that it was justified. 

The big question everyone is asking is whether the homeowner really had a good reason to think they were in danger. In other cases where people have faced unexpected danger, quick reactions have been necessary, but this situation raises questions about whether the response was appropriate.

Maria left behind four kids. Her youngest child is only one year old and her oldest is 17. She came to the United States from Guatemala to build a better life for her family. Her brother Rudy said Maria was a kind and happy person who loved her family more than anything. He thinks the homeowner should have shouted a warning or called the police instead of just shooting. The family wants the person who killed Maria to face charges.

Police have not told anyone who the homeowner is or who pulled the trigger. They said they are being careful because a lot of false information is spreading online. Some people on social media claimed the shooter was a police officer, but the police department said that is completely untrue. No current or former officers live at that house or have any connection to it.

Last year in Missouri, a teenager named Ralph Yarl got shot after he rang the doorbell at the wrong house. The man who shot him ended up pleading guilty but died before he could be sentenced. Legal experts say this new case in Indiana will come down to one thing. Can prosecutors prove that shooting Maria was not a reasonable thing to do? Some experts have noted that split-second decisions in dangerous situations can have tragic consequences when the proper response is not taken.