Rhonda Kalapach believes Jehovah's Witnesses have no place on her property.
When two of them came to her door, the 60-year-old Monroe County woman asked them to leave. Her husband saw the women from across the street and yelled at them, but they didn’t go.
That’s when her husband, William George Kalapach, came into the home and got his rifle. The women were walking to the car where three other people were waiting, when Kalapach said they weren’t moving fast enough, police said.
Police said he fired four shots into the ground about 11 a.m. Saturday near the car with all five people inside. He is now in county prison, charged with aggravated assault and related charges.
"This is a Catholic home," Rhonda Kalapach said. "This is a devout home."
She said the evangelists ignored repeated demands from her and her husband to leave, forcing her husband to react the way he did.
They were at her door about five to 10 minutes before shots rang out, Rhonda Kalapach said.
"I kept telling them this was a Catholic home," she said. "They were trying to convert me."
She said Jehovah’s Witnesses come to her door about three to four times a year. They visited last winter, she said. Every time they’re told to leave. She said her husband did what he had to do to defend their home, she said.
"He doesn’t think he did anything wrong," she said. "This is private property. If you drive in my driveway, you’re trespassing."
'Pretty upset'
She doesn’t know how she’ll pay for bail or a lawyer for her husband. She said he’s a former truck driver who was forced to retire due to poor health. She said he has cancer, diabetes and recently suffered a massive heart attack.
She said she’s on Social Security. They have no family, she said.
"I've never had this kind of trouble before," she said. "I haven’t gotten a raise in over two years."
On top of that, his mother died last week.
"We just buried his 96-year-old mother on Wednesday," she said. "Things are pretty upset around here."
Rhonda Kalapach said police took photographs of the bullets in her yard.
Police said a 53-year-old and 18-year-old woman came to the door, and then left with 38-year-old and 20-year-old women and a 16-year-old boy in the car. She said the shots were "50, 60 feet away" from the women.
"He wouldn’t have been shooting at them," she said.
State police at the Swiftwater barracks would not comment beyond what was in a news release. William Kalapach is charged with a single count of aggravated assault, five counts of making terroristic threats and five counts of recklessly endangering another person. Police seized the rifle.
Warnings
Rhonda Kalapach said she has four neighbors on her street in the 400 block of Schoolhouse Road. None of them want visits from Jehovah’s Witnesses, she said.
"These people never take no for an answer. They keep going on and they want you to read their papers," she said. "Up here, anywhere around here … when you don’t leave you get a warning shot. Just get the (expletive) out of here."
The neighbors call each other, she said, with a warning not to open the door if the Jehovah’s Witnesses are spotted.
But this time Rhonda Kalapach didn’t ignore the knocking.
"I didn’t recognize the car," she said. "I should have never opened the door."
No comments:
Post a Comment