AN Aberdeen businessman was shot and killed by a homeowner in Houston,
Texas, yesterday after hammering on the door of a house at 4am to ask
for help in getting a taxi.
Andrew de Vries, 28, from Aberdeen, who was with a colleague, Mr
Sydney Graves, 42, was shot at point-blank range through the back door
of the house in West Houston by the homeowner who apparently thought he
was a burglar.
One woman witness said the two Scotsmen had knocked on the doors of
several homes before coming to the house where the shooting happened.
''I was panicky,'' she said. ''It wasn't just one knock. It was 10. I
looked out of the window and I saw a man out there hiding.''
Mr de Vries had only recently joined the international oil well survey
company Nowsco and was in Houston on a technical training trip. Both men
were based at Nowsco's Aberdeen headquarters.
Press sources named the homeowner as Mr Jeffrey Agee, of 115
Warrenton. He was being questioned by detectives last night.
The two Scots, described by police as ''highly intoxicated'', were in
the affluent neighbourhood after apparently running away from two people
who had given them a lift following a night out at a Country and Western
bar.
Houston Police spokesman Alvin Wright said the two men had been at the
Post Oak Ranch earlier in the evening and left with some people they had
met. They went to a house and then two of the people gave them a lift
back to their hotel.
Police said Mr de Vries believed they were going in the wrong
direction and left the car. Mr Graves ran after him to try to bring him
back.
Finding themselves in a residential neighbourhood, they started
knocking on doors to ask for help in getting a taxi back to their hotel.
Mr de Vries knocked at the front door of the house at 115 Warrenton
and, getting no reply, jumped into the back garden. Police said the
homeowner saw both men at the fence in his backyard and then saw a man
approach the door. He fired through the door and hit Mr de Vries twice.
Mr Wright said the gun was a .25 and described it as something like a
baby Derringer, ''real small''.
He said Houston had recently experienced a phenomenon known as kick
burglars or home invasions, with people battering down doors to gain
entry to a house and tying up the occupants.
Information about the shooting would be sent to a grand jury but it
was unlikely that the homeowner would be charged.
''At 4am, someone banging on the door in a feverish manner, battering,
you would be afraid,'' said Mr Wright.
Mr de Vries stayed in Rosemount Place, Aberdeen, with his wife Alison.
Last night there was no reply at the second floor flat. Neighbours
said they had no idea Mr de Vries was in the United States.
Mr Graves is the brother of Nowsco's UK district officer Les Graves.
Last night Mr Les Graves said he had broken the news to Mr de Vries'
widow. He said: ''We are a small, friendly company where everyone knows
everyone and this has come as a great shock. Our thoughts are very much
with the family.''
A spokesman for Nowsco's HQ in Calgary, Canada, said the event was
tragic and added: ''We have no experience of this kind of incident in
the company.''
The shooting comes nine months after Edinburgh teacher Adrian Strasser
was beaten to death in New Orleans hours after he arrived in the city.
Mr Strasser was on holiday with his pregnant fiancee.
Police in New Orleans have said they believe they know who committed
the crime but have so far been unable to press charges.
The Houston shooting is similar to an incident in Louisiana in October
1992 when a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student was shot and killed by
a homeowner after he knocked on the door of a house to ask directions to
a party.
The homeowner was later acquitted of manslaughter.
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