Colorado homeowner emptied pistol to kill bear that broke in
DENVER (AP) — Ken Mauldin was jolted awake last weekend with his wife screaming incessantly in their split level home in Colorado's mountain town of Steamboat Springs where their three children were sleeping one floor below. Then she yelled: “There's a bear in the house!”
Kelly Mauldin had just been awakened by the couple's barking dogs that didn't wake up her husband before dawn on Saturday. She walked to the door of the couple's bedroom and found herself staring at a male black bear weighing about 400 pounds (181 kilograms) — about 10 feet (3 meters) away in the dining room.
In an interview, Ken Mauldin said he grabbed his 40-caliber pistol, took his wife’s place at the door and shot once, aiming for the center of the bear’s body. He thinks the first shot hit the bear and it charged him as Mauldin continued firing.
As he was shooting, the bear got as close as 5 feet (1.5 meters) from Mauldin and then turned toward the stairs leading to the home’s front door. The bear crashed through a bannister as Mauldin emptied the gun and slid down the stairs, mortally wounded.
The couple didn’t know it at the time, but officials believe the bear got inside their home by flipping down the lever of their unlocked front door handle and pushing the door.
After it was shot, the bear lay breathing and heaving between Mauldin and his three sons on the home's lower floor, but he didn't think the bear would get back up. He called 911 and one of his sons called him on his cellphone and Mauldin told the son to stay put in his room.
“My only thought was protecting my family and putting that bear down,” said Mauldin.
The bear had moved an unopened bag of dog food across the dining room. Police and state wildlife officers arrived a short time later and determined that the bear was dead. They...