Plan B Forum

According to court documents, Kaarma and his wife Janelle Pflager became increasingly agitated after their Grant Creek home was burglarized over the weeks preceding the April 27 shooting.

The couple installed motion sensors and a video monitor inside the garage and in the driveway. Pflager allegedly left her purse in the garage as “bait” for the burglars to take. She also left the garage door open the night of the shooting.

The couple was enjoying a movie in their home when they were alerted to Dede’s presence in their garage shortly after midnight. Kaarma grabbed a shotgun, exited the front door of his home, and turned to face the partially open garage – which was shrouded in darkness.

Pflager was right behind him.

Pflager said she thought she heard Kaarma say “hey, hey,” and Dede say “hey or wait” before her husband fired four shots into the back of the garage. Two of those shots hit and mortally wounded Dede, according to the affidavit filed by prosecutors.

Pflager called 9-1-1 and turned on the lights in the garage. When she saw Dede on the floor, she was instructed by the 9-1-1 dispatcher to add pressure to the wound, the affidavit stated. She pressed a pet pad to the head wound and held Dede in her arms while he bled to death on their garage floor.

Missoula County prosecutors have declined to file charges against Pflager, despite detailing her involvement in the events leading up to the shooting in the affidavit.

They paint Kaarma as irrational, angry and violent.

According to the 19-page revised affidavit, Kaarma had several instances of road rage the day before the shooting. And on April 23, he allegedly told his hairdresser that he was waiting up late at night to “shoot some (expletive) kid.”

Kaarma has amassed five defense attorneys – including Paul Ryan, who said the team has retained national experts to testify on Kaarma’s behalf at trial.

Ryan said Kaarma’s behavior before the shooting was the result of stress – Kaarma and Pflager had not been sleeping well and they felt like they were being watched by burglars who had stolen from them before.

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According to court documents, Dede and exchange student Robby Pazmino, of Ecuador, were on the hunt for alcohol when Dede entered Kaarma’s garage in the early morning hours of April 27. Dede lived a few doors down from Kaarma in the home of Kate Walker and Randy Smith, his host parents.

In interviews with police, Pazmino said the teens had gone “garage hopping,” an activity that involves entering garages in search of alcohol, several times before with American students, but they had never gone inside the garages.

That night, however, Dede decided to take a chance.

Pazmino watched Dede from the middle of the street as he wordlessly went into Kaarma’s garage.

He said he heard a strange voice say “I see you there,” and ran when Kaarma fired the first shot.

Pazmino returned to Ecuador a week after the shooting.

Also that week, Missoula police interviewed two Missoula males, ages 18 and 16, who confessed to burglarizing Kaarma’s home, taking credit cards, an iPhone, two wallets, marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia. Tristan Staber, 18, has been charged with burglary and is held in Missoula County jail pending a $10,000 bond.

The 16-year-old’s case will be handled in Youth Court. His name hasn’t been released to the press.

Both suspects denied any association with Dede and Pazmino, the affidavit stated.