[chris]

Clay Hausenfleck, 46, was never charged in the Aug. 28, 2009, homicide of Louis Mason, 28, at his Sylvania, Ohio, home, but was sentenced to three years in prison after police found more than 200 marijuana plants in his basement, according to court and police records.

Hausenfleck, a truck driver, called 911 around 1 a.m. and told dispatchers a masked man had broken through the back door of his home on Williamsburg Drive and rushed at him. Sylvania officers arrived and found Mason, of Toledo, dead of two gunshot wounds to the back. The Lucas County coroner ruled his death a homicide.

Police discovered the marijuana plants while processing the scene. Hausenfleck was arrested and arraigned Aug. 31, 2009, on felony charges of illegal cultivation of marijuana, trafficking marijuana and drug possession, with bond set at $100,000. Police said then they had not determined whether the shooting was self-defense or connected to the drug operation. No charges related to Mason's death were ever filed against Hausenfleck.

Investigators said Mason had broken in with two other men, David Irving, 31, of Ottawa Hills, and Billy Wilkinson, 33, in what police believed was an attempt to steal the marijuana. Irving and Wilkinson fled after the shooting. Irving evaded police for weeks before he was located in Arizona. His girlfriend, Julie Britton, 25, was charged with complicity to aggravated burglary for her role in planning the break-in.

Hausenfleck pleaded guilty in January 2010 to the cultivation and possession charges. Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Stacy Cook sentenced him the following month to three years in prison, telling him she considered him a danger to his family and that, because of the marijuana in his home, "the crime was drawn to you." Hausenfleck told the judge he had grown the marijuana to support his children while he was on workers' compensation. "Of course, nobody put me here but me," he said.

Wilkinson pleaded no contest to burglary and was sentenced in March 2010 to four years in prison. Irving pleaded no contest to aggravated burglary with a gun specification and faced up to 11 years in prison at his sentencing. Britton pleaded no contest to attempted burglary and was sentenced in May 2010 to six months at the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio, followed by four years of probation.