Mary Starling Shirley was quietly working on her computer just after 6 a.m. last Thursday morning. Suddenly, she noticed one of the windows in the room begin to open from the outside.
St. Petersburg police told Fox-13 that Shirley then saw a man—someone she didn’t know—coming through the window. Shirley warned the suspect that she was armed, but he kept coming through the window. With her clear warning and the intruder’s continued advance, she had no choice.
The suspect, 48-year-old Timothy Scott Tugman, was struck twice with shots from Shirley’s revolver. After police and EMTs arrived, Tugman was taken to a hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. The suspect is expected to survive—and expected to face occupied residential burglary charges once released from the hospital. Police told reporters Shirley was traumatized from the episode, but she took the right precautions in a serious situation.
