Police had been called twice before on unfounded suspicions of criminal activity to the Indiana home where they say a man later killed a house cleaner he mistook for an intruder, officials said Wednesday. Curt Andersen, 62, was arrested Monday and faces a voluntary manslaughter charge in the Nov. 5 fatal shooting of Maria Florinda Rios Perez, a 32-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, outside his front door in Whitestown. Police say Andersen had reported suspicious activity in 2023 and 2024, but officers found nothing amiss on either occasion, the AP reports.
Andersen, who has lived in the community about 20 miles northwest of Indianapolis for about four years, told police he believed someone was breaking in when he heard people at his door. In reality, Rios Perez and her husband had been hired to clean a model home in the neighborhood and mistakenly tried to enter Andersen's residence. A former neighbor described Andersen as "paranoid about the world" and fearful of crime, noting that he and his wife kept to themselves and rarely socialized. The neighbor, however, considered Andersen harmless.
Andersen, a decorated Navy veteran who served in Japan, told detectives he had made plans for what to do if someone broke into his home, including designating a "safe room." When he heard the couple at his door, he reportedly told police, he was terrified they were going to harm him. Rios Perez's husband, Mauricio Velásquez, earlier told Telemundo that he wanted to see the shooter brought to justice. "It's not possible that he is free, meanwhile, the children are suffering," he said. "Seeing my wife in my arms, already lifeless, covered in blood, I felt like they tore everything from me."
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