Phillip Sailors, 69, a war veteran and a former church missionary, is being held on charges of malice murder after a shooting at his residence on Saturday.
A group of friends in Lilburn, GA said they were going to pick up a girl who lived in the area to go ice skating around 10 p.m. when their GPS system sent them to the wrong home.
“The guy came out. He went in again and he came out with a gun in his hand and he shot into the air,” 15-year-old passenger Yeson Jimenez said.
The teens say after Sailors fired that one shot into the air, the driver got scared and tried to turn around. That's when Sailors allegedly fired the second shot, killing their friend.
Police took the other three who were in the car to the police station and questioned them overnight. Authorities say they then had enough evidence to arrest Sailors and charge him with murder.
Garcia, who has only been in the country for a few months, can't understand how any of this could have happened.
"That means that you cannot come to a house and be confused about it? And somebody will come out and say, 'Hello, may I help you? What are you doing here?' And you start shooting like a maniac," Garcia said through a translator.
Rodrigo Diaz, 22, who was driving the car, was shot in the head, according to the arrest warrant.
The passengers said Sailors never asked what they were doing there.
“’Shut up.’ That’s the only thing that came out of his mouth,” passenger Gandy Cardenas said.
The friends said that Sailors held them in the car at gunpoint until local police arrived at the home. The three passengers who were in the car are all local high school students.
Sailors' attorney told WSBTV that the man believed he and his wife were being attacked.
“He is very distraught over the loss of life from the defense of his home. This incident happened late in the evening hours when he was home with his wife and he assumed it was a home invasion and he maintains his innocence,” the attorney said.
