Zoey Ripple, the 21-year-old CU-Boulder graduate who police say drunkenly wandered into a Boulder home last week only to be shot and wounded by the homeowners, turned herself in to the Boulder County Jail on Tuesday.
According to Ripple's arrest affidavit, she thought she was in a friend's house and was "very confused" upon entering Tim Justice and Doreen Orion's Boulder home.
The recently released affidavit sheds some light on the events of the early hours of May 23 when the intrusion and shooting took place. Orion claims that she woke up because she heard noises outside her and Justice's French doors and thought the noises were being made by an animal. Orion then woke up Justice and they both saw a "glowing light" through the sliding screen door to their bedroom and thought it was a flashlight of a possible intruder -- the light was later thought to have likely been coming from Ripple's cell phone. The couple told the person to leave numerous times, but the person never retreated so, Orion told Justice to "get the gun."
That's when Justice retrieved his handgun from a drawer in his nightstand. Justice says he could still see the person holding what looked like a flashlight in the dark and fired toward the light. Orion and Justice were afraid they were being robbed and at this point still weren't sure if there were more intruders in the house. Justice then turned on the bedroom light and realized their lone intruder was a female.
Orion then placed a frantic call to 911, obtained by the Daily Camera:
Orion: "Somebody came into our house.. she's in the house now, she's fine but she's been shot... we shot her."
Dispatcher: Is she conscious and breathing?
Orion: "Yes yes yes."
Orion: "We started screaming at her to leave and she kept coming in."
Later in the call Orion tells the dispatcher Ripple seems "kind of stoned or something." The Daily Camera reports Ripple's blood alcohol content level was at least 0.20 at the time of the incident.
Later at Boulder Community Hospital, Ripple told the investigating detective that she had been at a house party on the 900 block of Grandview Avenue and had later joined a group of friends at The Goose Bar on Broadway and stayed until the bar closed at almost 2 a.m. But two witnesses said she stayed only briefly and left alone sometime between 2:30 and 2:45 a.m. -- police don't know where Ripple was between 2:45 a.m. and 3:26 a.m, when she was shot. The Boulder home where Ripple was shot is about three-quarters of a mile from the last party she was seen at.
Police say that Ripple entered the $2.75 million home on 425 College Ave on Wednesday morning through an unlocked screen door.
"This was an unfortunate incident for the homeowners in this case, who are understandably upset by what occurred, and for Ms. Ripple, who could have been fatally wounded," wrote Boulder DA Stan Garnett in a statement on Westword. "It is also unfortunate that we see a lot of incidents in Boulder where people become so intoxicated that they illegally trespass into another's residence. Luckily most of them don't result in someone being shot, but as this case illustrates, it certainly is a possibility."
"She didn't enter the house with any intent of committing a crime or harming anyone," responded Ripple's attorney Colette Cribari this afternoon to the Daily Camera. "We're thankful she was not killed or more seriously hurt, but we're disappointed they decided to file charges on top of all this."
Ripple faces a class-five felony criminal trespassing charge, 9news reports. However under Colorado's Make My Day Law, people who use deadly force for self defense in their own homes cannot be prosecuted and as a result, Justice will not face charges.
LOOK: Ripple's Arrest Affidavit