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Donna Jackson, 57, shot and killed Billy Dean Riley, 53, after he broke through her patio door south of Cushing, Oklahoma, on Dec. 4, 2009, and the district attorney ruled four days later that she acted within her rights.

Jackson, a rural Lincoln County woman, was in bed shortly before 12:30 a.m. when her dogs started barking. She found a man pounding on her rear patio door, cursing and threatening to hurt her, then called 911, retrieved a shotgun from a closet and stayed on the line as he tried to force his way inside.

"They need to hurry. He's going to break this thing open," Jackson told the dispatcher, according to a recording of the call. "When he does, I'll have to kill him, and I don't want to kill him."

For nearly 10 minutes, the man kicked and banged on the glass door while Lincoln County dispatchers Brenda Hart and Joan Herd were on the line with Jackson. "I could hear him banging the doors and yelling at her. I was scared for her," Hart said afterward.

The man picked up a patio table and used it to break through the glass, stepping into the house. Jackson fired one shotgun blast, striking him in the chest, and he fell backward with his feet still inside the doorway.

Investigators identified him as Riley, of Sparks, Oklahoma. Lincoln County Sheriff Chuck Mangion said Riley had wrecked his pickup truck near Jackson's property shortly before the break-in; his sister was found passed out inside the truck and was not involved in the attempted break-in. Investigators said Riley may have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol and that it was not immediately clear why he approached Jackson's home.

District Attorney Richard Smothermon reviewed the sheriff's investigation and the 911 recording and declined to file charges against Jackson on Dec. 8, 2009. In a letter to Mangion, Smothermon wrote that physical evidence, including glass fragments bearing prints from Riley's boots, matched Jackson's account, and that Oklahoma law entitled her to use deadly force against someone forcibly entering her home. Jackson's family declined to comment on the shooting.