Michigan porch shooter's remarks played in court

DETROIT - A suburban Detroit man who killed an unarmed woman on his porch suggested immediately afterwards to police that it was an accident and that he didn't know his shotgun was loaded, according to recorded remarks played in court Thursday.

Theodore Wafer, 55, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of 19-year-old Renisha McBride, who appeared on his porch three-and-a-half hours after crashing her car a half-mile away in Detroit.

Wafer, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, met officers outside his Dearborn Heights home after they responded to his 911 call around 4:30 a.m. on Nov. 2, 2013.

"What happened here?" Sgt. Rory McManmon asked, according to the recording played by prosecutors.

"A consistent knocking on the door, and I'm trying to look through the windows and the door," Wafer said. "It's banging somewhere else so I open up the door, kind of like who is this? And the gun discharged.

"I didn't know there was a round in there," Wafer told McManmon. "I don't get it. Who's knocking on your door at 4:30 in the morning? Bang, bang, bang - somebody wanting in."

He told police that the victim, later identified as McBride, looked like a "neighbor girl or something." McBride didn't live in the neighborhood, and an autopsy revealed she was extremely drunk.

Wafer's lawyers say he shot McBride in self-defense. Prosecutors, however, say he should have called police if he feared for his safety.

Police asked Wafer about his weapon, which was on the ground in the foyer of his home when officers arrived.

"It's a little Mossberg, you know, shotgun. Self-defense," Wafer replied.

CBS Detroit reports the suspect's defense attorney, Cheryl Carpenter, told the jury in court Wednesday that her client's heart was "coming out of his chest.... There's a shadowy figure coming off the porch and going to the side of the house. He thinks it's not one person; it's two or more people."

Prosecutor Danielle Hagaman-Clark said Wafer had other options, according to the station. "His actions that night were unnecessary, unjustified and unreasonable," she told the jury.

The jury - comprised of seven men and seven women - was seated on Tuesday, the station reports. Four of the jurors are African-American, including two women and two men. Carpenter denied accusations made by the prosecution during jury selection that she dismissed jurors based on race.

Wafer is white and McBride was black.