For the most intelligent of citizens, it does not take being made a victim yourself to know it can happen to you. Mr. & Mrs. Krause took precautions, and it saved their lives in 1998. Read this article, and consider buying yourself some "self-defense insurance."

April 25, 2004
Toledo Blade

Mary Lou Krause, a 73-year-old widow who lives in Swanton Township, is among recent graduates of firearms training and has applied to the Lucas County Sheriff's Office for a concealed-carry permit.

She has good reason. She was involved in a shooting during a break-in at her home in 1998, in which she shot and wounded an armed intruder and was herself shot in return.

"It's primarily for protection - for some freedom from fear. So I can go out to shopping malls, movies, dinner. So I do not have to worry about being mugged or hijacked."

Mrs. Krause, a retired cook from the Maumee Youth Center, briefly recalled the burglary-shooting, in which she was grazed in the hip.

Her late husband, Jerry, had gone to the back door and had stepped outside to address a stranger who had come knocking. She went for a handgun. "We had a plan - just like it says in the [current training] book," she said.

Their cautious preparation proved prudent.

An accomplice of the stranger jumped Mr. Krause, and they dragged him inside. Mrs. Krause peeked around the corner of a cinder-block interior wall. "All I could see was a forearm and a gun. I stepped out and fired immediately."

The thug, wounded in the shoulder, returned fire, slightly injuring Mrs. Krause. He ran outside, firing. His partner had disappeared. Authorities caught up with the gunman later at the hospital and arrested him. Eventually, "they got them both," Mrs. Krause recalled.

Sheriff James Telb said at the time the shooting was justified.

When the concealed-carry law took effect, Mrs. Krause did not hesitate to enroll.

"I felt I need to carry a gun. I felt the need to feel as safe on the road as I do at home."

Just what are businesses that choose to deny their employees and customers their right to self-defense trying to protect them from? Note that this violent criminal ignored the 150-year-old concealed carry ban while commiting his horrible acts. Of course, his defenseless victims were dutifully obeying the law.

April 23, 2004
Cincinnati Post

Search is on for rapist

Piercing blue eyes. Disarming personality. An engaging conversationalist.
It sounds like the description of a movie star, but it is, in fact, how FBI
officials describes a serial rapist they hope the public will soon help them
find.

Earlier this month, the FBI formally joined 10 other police agencies from
three states to investigate eight robbery and sexual assault crimes over the
past 12 years in the tri-state. All but two occurred in the last six months at
stores and restaurants near interstate highways.

The FBI has linked four of the crimes through forensic evidence and is
currently investigating four others that appear to be similar, said FBI
Northern Kentucky Office Supervisor Bill O'Leary.

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"He is a white male who preys on employees who are working alone in strip
malls or shopping plazas near the interstate. He engages them in conversation.

He is well-spoken, clean-cut. -- The conversation is sometimes seeking
employment or (he's) acting as a customer -- it's very disarming. He does not raise the suspicion of the victim."

O'Leary said the man typically has left after five- or 10-minute chats, only to return later and force employees to back rooms, where he's assaulted them.

All but two of the crimes have involved a sexual attack. And all of the crimes
involved robbery, except for a Devou Park sexual assault police think the same
man might have committed in 1999.

Unspecified forensic evidence has linked that assault to three others -- in
February 1992 at a Colerain Township, Ohio, Shoe World; in January 2004 at an
Aurora, Ind., Payless Shoes; and in February 2004 at a Cold Spring Subway
restaurant. Four other attacks in November 2003 and January and February this
year in Ohio and Kentucky involved a man of the same appearance and methods,
police said.

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