WILLIAMSTON, SC – Anderson County police are investigating a self-defense shooting that happened after a homeowner shot and killed a stranger who forced his way into the Williamston home and was assaulting the homeowners’ family.
It started around 10:00 pm; 35-year-old Antwain Moton said he was playing his X-Box when a man he didn’t know began pounding on his door.
The pounding was frightening his family, so Moton told the man to leave his property.
Instead of listening, the man entered the home and began to scuffle not only with Moton, but also his wife and Grandmother.
His four-year-old daughter was also in the house, scared and crying in her bedroom.
Moton said, “His hands were just coming toward us, like he was going to do some type of harm,”
Once the man was inside the house, Moton felt he had no other choice.
“He was in the front door and closed the door behind him when I had to shoot him.”
Moton said he fired one shot. He struck the man, later identified as Efren Nectali Ramirez, 39, from Honduras, in the chest.
Ramirez fell backwards, and the homeowner then tried to help him.
Moton continued: “As soon as I shot him, I called 911, and tried to keep him responsive while I (spoke to the dispatcher).”
By the time deputies arrived, the intruder Ramirez had died of his wound.
The coroner later reported that Ramirez, a construction worker, was heavily intoxicated at the time of the attack on Moton’s home.
Moton said that he has been on edge, playing through the scene is his mind and wondering what if things had gone differently.
“It hurts me that I took his life. I didn’t want that to happen, but I had no other choice,” Moton said Monday evening. “What if I wouldn’t have been home? What would he have done then? ”
Moton said he did what we felt he had to do.
“I had to protect them. That’s my family.”
Moton asked why the man chose his house, but police have said they don’t have an answer to that question; the investigation is still ongoing.
- We don’t know what led Ramirez into Moton’s home, but we do know that Moton’s wife, daughter, and Grandmother are safe and unharmed because he had a gun and knew when to use it.