Michigan man, 67, fatally wounded after breaking into ex-girlfriend's home
ORION TOWNSHIP, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - Police said a man broke into a home to attack his ex-girlfriend and was shot and killed by the woman's stepson in Orion Township Wednesday morning.
It happened just after 10 a.m. at a home on Elkhorn Lake Road in Orion Township.
Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said the 62-year-old woman had previously lived with the suspect, identified as 67-year-old Galen Gavitt, for 17 years in another county.
Authorities said she had obtained a personal protection order against him after his alleged threatening behavior, including threats that he was going to kill her.
Police said she sought refuge at her stepdaughter's home in Orion Township, which is where they say Gavitt traveled to Wednesday morning.
Bouchard said Gavitt used an ax to break into the home through a basement window, and that the woman and her stepson then barricaded themselves in an upstairs bedroom, leaning against the door to keep Gavitt out.
That's when they said he fired a shot from a revolver through the door, narrowly missing the stepson, who dove for cover.
That, they said, allowed Gavitt to gain entrance to the bedroom, where they said he pointed his gun at the stepson and indicated he was only in the home for his ex-girlfriend.
That's when Bouchard said the stepson fired his own weapon at Gavitt, killing him.
"It's a terrible situation any time there's a loss of life," Bouchard said. "But...the person that came there to perpetrate violence, thank God, was the only one who was hurt, and in this case killed, by the violence they sought to wreak."
He said there were no other injuries.
Bouchard added that Gavitt's guns had been taken away under recently enacted red flag laws after the protection order was granted, but they believe he was able to get the revolver from his ex-wife before traveling to Orion Township.
"There's never a good outcome," Bouchard said. "But if you're going to have a better outcome than having three people dead at this point, because oftentimes what you see is they kill everyone there and then kill themselves. So we've, all of us, have been to countless murder-suicides, and it would not surprise me at all if that's what was on his mind."
An investigation is ongoing.
