A man has been jailed for life without the possibility of parole after he shot a woman dead with a stolen assault rifle.
Michael Close killed Isabella Thallas in 2020 while she walked her dog, Rocko, near his apartment in Denver, Colorado, and tried to kill her boyfriend Darian Simon.
The trio got into an argument when Isabella encouraged her dog to go to the toilet on the lawn outside his flat. He shouted: ‘Are you going to train your dog or just yell at it?’
Darian told him to mind his own business and that Rocko was a good dog.
Close took the rifle, which belonged to his friend police sergeant Dan Politica and shot 25 rounds at them from the AK-47.
Isabella died at the scene while Darian was hit twice but survived. Sergeant Politica ended up quitting after the shooting, according to the Denver Post.
Close ran away from the scene, taking the AK-47 and a handgun with him, and hid in the mountains before eventually being stopped on Highway 285.
Earlier that day, he had sent a message to his ex-girlfriend that one of his own dogs was attacked at a nearby dog park and he planned to execute its owners.
Isabella and Darian had nothing to do with that incident but Deputy District Attorney McKenna Burke said: ‘He was stewing and he was welling with anger inside of him.’
Close pleaded not guilty due to insanity, citing a nervous breakdown from a childhood trauma, losing several jobs and the ongoing Covid pandemic.
His lawyer, Sonja Prins, said: ‘He disassociated. He was outside of his head. He did not consider anything. He had a mental break and he did not know what he was doing.’
However, prosecutors argued that he knew what he was doing and a court-appointed doctor said that while he had depression and had contemplated suicie, he was not criminally insane.
After deliberating for just under three hours, a jury found Close guilty of all charges. The shooter hung his head and cried as the verdict was read.
‘There’s no winners in this,’ Isabella’s father Joshua told 9News. ‘We go home after this, our family’s broke, I’m still without my daughter.’
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