A Line Crossed? The 80-Year-Old Homeowner Who Fired on a Fleeing Intruder and Said “No Regrets”
Your home is your castle. It is the one place on earth you are supposed to be safe. The “Castle Doctrine,” a legal concept baked into the laws of many states, affirms this. It gives homeowners the right to use force—even d*adly force—to protect themselves from a violent intruder. But how far does that right extend?
Does it end when the intruder turns to flee? Does it evaporate if the person is unarmed? And what does the law do when a “frail” 80-year-old man, moments after being brutally att*cked, makes a split-second decision that ends a life?
This is the complex, tragic, and deeply controversial story of Thomas Greer, an 80-year-old Long Beach, California, resident. His ftal encounter with a brglar on July 22, 2014, became a national flashpoint, pitting the sacred right of self-defense against what many saw as a cold act of vengeance.
The case was set ablaze by Greer’s own chilling words to a news crew, describing the ftal moments with an intruder named Andrea Miller. “She says, ‘don’t sh**t me, I’m prgnant—I’m going to have a baby,'” Greer recounted. “And I sh*t her anyway.”
His statement, “I don’t regret it,” sent shockwaves through the public. But as investigators dug into the case, they uncovered a story far more violent and complex than the initial reports suggested—leading to a legal conclusion that no one saw coming.
The Night of the Confrontation
This was not the first time Thomas Greer’s home had been violated. He had been the victim of at least two previous b*rglaries. When he returned to his Bixby Knolls home on that July night, he walked into a living nightmare.
He found a man and a woman, later identified as 26-year-old Gus Polly Adams and 28-year-old Andrea Miller, “ransacking” his home. They were in the process of breaking into his safe.
But the pair did not simply run. According to the official investigation, they immediately and brutally attcked the 80-year-old. They “tackled him, threw him to the ground, and jumped on top of him.” As Gus Adams returned to the safe, Andrea Miller allegedly continued to beat the elderly man. The assult was so severe that Greer was left with a broken collarbone, as well as numerous cuts and bruises.
The situation was even more dire than it appeared. While being att*cked inside, Greer was effectively trapped. A third accomplice, Gus Adams’s mother, Ruby Adams, was allegedly outside blocking his front door, acting as a lookout.
Bleeding and overpowered, Greer managed to break free for a moment. He scrambled to his bedroom and retrieved his .22-caliber rvolver. When he returned, the intruders, seeing the frearm, finally decided to flee. They had managed to get $5,000 from the safe.
“I Sh*t Her Anyway”
This is the moment the narrative splits. This is the line—somewhere between the hallway and the alley—that the entire case balanced upon.
As Gus Adams and Andrea Miller fled out the back, Tom Greer, injured and enraged, “followed.” He fired his w*apon, both inside the house and again as they ran into the alley.
Andrea Miller, as Greer himself stated, “didn’t run as fast as the man.” She was strck twice, once in the chest and once in the knee. She collapsed in the alley, and her injuries would be ftal.
In the immediate aftermath, a local news crew arrived. Greer, running on pure adrenaline and the shock of the encounter, gave the interview that would make him infamous.
“I sh*t her so that’s going to leave a message on his mind for the rest of his life,” Greer said of the male accomplice who got away. He was blunt, cold, and utterly without remorse.
The “no regrets” stance, combined with the horrifying admission of shting a woman who was pleading for her life, painted a picture of a man who had taken the law into his own hands. The legal analyst in the video was correct: “On the other hand, he did sht a person who was trying to get away. So he wasn’t in imminent danger himself.”
The public debate was fierce. Had his right to self-defense ended the moment they turned their backs? Had he become the aggressor?
Investigators then uncovered another shocking detail. Greer admitted to officers that after sh**ting Miller, he dragged her body from the alley back into his garage. His stated purpose? To “lure” Gus Adams back. The plan worked. Adams did return, at which point he stole Greer’s g*n and cell phone before fleeing for good.
A Tragic, Desperate Lie
For months, the detail that haunted the public most was the one that defined the tragedy: the dath of a woman and her unborn child. Greer’s own words—”she’s prgnant… I’m going to have a baby”—were reported as fact. It added an almost unspeakable layer of horror to the incident.
But it wasn’t true.
The Los Angeles County coroner’s office performed an autopsy and confirmed the fact: Andrea Miller was not pr*gnant.
Her plea was a desperate, last-second lie in a futile attempt to save her own life. This discovery did not change the fact that Greer believed she was prgnant at the moment he fired. But for the legal system, it removed one layer of complexity. The case was now about the ftal encounter with Andrea Miller, not a double h*micide.
The Legal Verdict: A Stunning Justification
As the investigation concluded, the public and media waited. All signs pointed to chrges against Thomas Greer. His own words seemed to be a confession of, at best, manslaughter, and at worst, a vengeful mrder.
Then came the decision from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. No ch*rges would be filed against Thomas Greer.
How was this possible? How could a man who admitted to sh**ting a fleeing, unarmed person in the back (though she was hit in the chest and knee) face no legal consequences?
The D.A.’s office released a detailed explanation. The decision was not based only on the moment of the sh**ting, but on the “totality of the circumstances.”
- A “Vulnerable Victim”: Greer was 80 years old and “frail.”
- “Great Bodily Injury”: The intruders had already inflicted “great bodily injury” on him by breaking his collarbone.
- He Was Trapped: With accomplices outside, the D.A. found it was reasonable for Greer to believe the threat was not over.
- Reasonable Fear: Because of his age, his severe injuries, and the fact he was trapped in his own home by multiple assailants, prosecutors concluded that Greer “is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of d*ath or great bodily injury.”
In the eyes of the law, the brutal assult he had just endured was directly linked to the ftal shots he fired moments later. His actions, while shocking to the public, were legally determined to be “a legitimate right of self-defense.”
The Final Irony: A M*rder Charge
The story has one final, ironic twist. A woman was d*ad, but the man who pulled the trigger was not held responsible. However, the law still demanded justice.
The District Attorney’s office did file chrges. They charged Greer’s surviving accomplice, **Gus Polly Adams, with the mrder of Andrea Miller.**
This is possible because of the “felony mrder rule.” This law states that if a person’s dath occurs during the commission of a dangerous felony (like first-degree residential robbery), the accomplices in that felony are just as legally responsible for the d*ath as the person who directly caused it.
Because Adams and Miller had engaged in a violent robbery that led directly to Miller’s dath, Adams was charged with her mrder, in addition to robbery, brglary, and elder abse. His mother, Ruby Adams, was also charged for her role as an accomplice.
The case of Tom Greer remains one of the most polarizing self-defense stories in recent memory. It’s a case that shattered a simple “good vs. evil” narrative. The video, with its raw emotion, showed a man who sounded like a vigilante. But the full investigation revealed a “vulnerable victim” who had been severely beaten and trapped.
While the law ultimately justified his actions, Greer’s cold, “no regrets” statement remains a chilling reminder of the brutal, unfiltered reality of violence—even when it’s all in the name of “self-defense.”
