WHITESTOWN, Ind. (WISH) — The man charged with killing a cleaning woman in Whitestown is scheduled to be in court for the first time on Friday. 

Online records show that 62-year-old Curt Andersen was booked into the Boone County Jail yesterday. Prosecutors say he shot Maria Florinda Rios Perez de Velasquez when she and other members of a cleaning crew showed up to the wrong house to clean earlier this month. 

Anderson now faces one count of voluntary manslaughter in the death.  

The announcement came almost two weeks after Perez’s death on Nov. 5.

Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood says that type of force should not have been used, adding the charging decision came after concluding Andersen’s actions did not fall under Indiana’s “Stand Your Ground” law, or the castle doctrine.

That law says a person is justified to use reasonable force, including deadly force, to protect themselves and others who are unable to retreat, assuming they are in a place they are legally allowed to be.

“The person did not have a reasonable belief that, that type of force was necessary, given all that facts that we have at this time,” he explained. “This is a tragedy for everyone involved, and our hearts and prayers are with her family as they now navigate this difficult time.”

Perez, a 32-year-old mother of four from Guatemala, was fatally shot just before 7 a.m. Nov. 5.

Whitestown Police Department officers originally responded to a possible home invasion in progress near the intersection of Maize Lane and Red Barn Drive.

There, they found Perez and a man on the home’s front porch. Officers tended to Perez, only to discover she was dead.

Andersen told investigators that he thought someone was trying to break into his home. Police say he fired one shot from the top of his stairs inside the home, through the front door, striking Perez in the head. 

Perez’s husband says they were using a key to try and open the door of what they thought was a model home in a Whitestown neighborhood they’d were hired to clean. 

Perez’s husband told police that location was where their GPS led them.

Guy Relford is a well-known 2^nd Amendment attorney and radio talk show host representing Andersen.

Though he acknowledged the shooting as a “terrible tragedy,” Relford claims Andersen was “judged unfairly.”

“We also believe that Mr. Andersen’s actions are being unfairly judged based on facts that were unknowable to him as events unfolded that early morning,” he said.

An attorney for Perez’s family says they also plan to file a civil lawsuit against Andersen seeking damages, regardless of the outcome of the criminal case. 

Andersen is set to be in court for the first time 10 a.m. Friday.

Related coverage

• Whitestown police investigate fatal shooting
• Family demands justice for housekeeper shot, killed in Whitestown
• Charges filed in shooting death of house cleaner Maria Rios Perez

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