Thaindian News

Washington, Mar 23 (ANI): A Florida beauty queen is said to have shot and killed an intruder with her pink .38-caliber handgun during a home invasion.

Ex-convict Albert Franklin Hill, 42, had forced his way into the posh 2,732-square-foot house Meghan Brown, 25, a former Florida pageant queen, shares with her fiance in Tierra Verde.

Hill barged into the home at around 3 a.m. after Brown responded to a knock at the front door, and he allegedly grabbed the 110-pound Brown around her nose and mouth and dragged her to an upstairs bedroom.

The woman’s fiance, Robert Planthaber, said in an interview that he was quickly awakened by the altercation and ran to Brown’s side.

“I attacked him and took a severe beating to the head. But I got him off of her long enough for her to scramble to the room where she keeps her pink .38 special,” Fox News quoted Planthaber as saying.

Brown, who reigned as the 2009 Miss Tierra Verde, snatched her gun from a nearby bedroom and shot the suspect several times - hitting him in the chest, groin, thigh and back, her fiance said.

Hill was pronounced dead at the scene.

Panthaber, a 42-year-old arborist, said he believes he and his fiancee were targeted because of their wealth.

He claimed a pizza deliveryman and possible accomplice staked out the home for three months before Hill attempted to burglarise it.

“We live in a very prominent area and my fiancee wears a 60,000 dollar engagement ring,” he said.

“The pizza man knew we had money because sometimes we needed change for a 100 dollar bill when he came to deliver pizza,” he explained.

Hill had a criminal record stretching back nearly three decades, including arrests for burglary, battery, drug possession and grand theft.

He reportedly served a 13-year prison term in 1987 and was released in September after serving a fourth term behind bars.

Detectives with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Robbery/Homicide Unit are still investigating the crime but believe the motive was robbery. They say they haven’t yet determined the relationship, if any, Hill had with the couple.

A police report said the ex-convict demanded money before the altercation between Hill and Panthaber ensued. (ANI)