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Korth Combat .357

Army vet who says he killed neighbor in self-defense reacts to not guilty verdict

by Robert Price
SAN ANTONIO – A young Army veteran who claimed he shot and killed his neighbor in self-defense is now busy planning his future as a free man.

A Bexar County jury found Roger McCracken, 25, not guilty of murder Thursday evening, despite the jurors telling the judge they were hopelessly deadlocked just a few hours earlier.

“I feel like the stress is off my shoulders and the weight’s lifted,” McCracken said Friday during an interview at his attorney’s office.

“I’m happy that I can say I can be home with my family.”
The father of four faced life in prison if he’d been convicted.

“I feel blessed,” he said of the acquittal. “I just know that I’ve got a future now.”

The deadly shooting that landed him on trial took place on Sept. 11, 2021. McCracken, his wife, and three kids had just returned home from Peter Piper Pizza.

But before they could get to their unit at the Pecan Valley Golf Apartments, McCracken says they encountered a highly agitated Ronnie “Boo Bear” Riddle, their 34-year-old neighbor.

“From the jump, I told (my attorney) I wanted my story out there,” McCracken said. “I wanted everybody to know the truth of what happened that night.”

And so, he and his wife both took the witness stand to testify during the eight-day murder trial.

“I realized all I had to do was go up there and tell the truth,” McCracken said. “But I will say, when I got on the stand, it was a completely different feeling. It was tough.”

“According to both of the McCrackens’ testimony, when Riddle came at them, he was calling them a cop caller and said he didn’t need no cops in his life,” said McCracken’s attorney Joseph Hoelscher. “Riddle said he was going to solve this problem right now when he reached for his gun.”

“I wasn’t going to let my family die, and I wasn’t going to let my wife and my kids be hurt,” McCracken explained. “I’m sorry that it happened, but it did.”

Hoelscher called the case a textbook example of self-defense. “Roger McCracken carried his weapon responsibly. He used it responsibly. He did everything that gun owners are trained to do if they ever have to use their weapon in self-defense.”

“He immediately took responsibility for the shooting, he surrendered his weapon and himself to law enforcement without any kind of problem whatsoever,” he continued.

But would a jury agree the shooting was justified? After several hours of deliberations, the jury told the judge they were deadlocked 11-1.

“I was actually very relieved (by the deadlock) because we didn’t know why the jury was taking so long on what we thought was a classic self-defense case,” Hoelscher said.

The judge told the jurors to keep deliberating, and a few hours later they successfully reached a verdict.

Not guilty.

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News 4 San Antonio

Police: Man shot after having trespassed at Durham home 3 times
A man police said was trespassing at a private residence multiple times was shot on Thursday evening.

A man police said was trespassing at another man’s Durham home multiple times Thursday was shot by the man who lived there.

Durham police responded to a home in the 8200 block of NC Highway 751 after learning of a man trespassing just after 5:30 p.m.

A person who lived at the home told police the trespasser was Brandon Collins and Collins had trespassed on the property twice on Thursday.

After 7 p.m., Collins was seen on the property a third time, leading to a fight between the resident and him. Collins was shot sometime during the altercation and taken to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

An arrest warrant was granted for Collins on charges of first-degree trespassing.

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WRAL

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