It was Sept. 2005. Recovery after Hurricane Katrina. I was 18 years old in Mid Southern Mississippi. My grandfather had a work shop that collapsed and he had about $300K of metal working equipment in the shop. I spent many summers in that shop making S-locks and ducts for multiple buildings in the town and state
But when Katrina hit, we had to abandon the shop for survival. We were able to get back to it, but the building collapsed. All of his equipment (and bass boat) was under the wreckage. Anyone could get into it if they tried hard enough, so we posted nightly watches on the property and watch the collapsed shop. When we stood watch, we had a mossberg 30 alt 6 and a New England 12 gauge with buck shot.
There was one night where it was my turn. I was sitting on the porch of the house (half an acre away from the shop) and I hear wood breaking and rustling. I grab both rifles, but I have the shotgun on my shoulder.
I scream "Get off the property" while watching a guy try to pull a panel off the wall to get into the collapsed building. I fire the buckshot, even though I know it's not going to hit. I was just hoping it would scare them enough to run away, but they didn't. When they kept trying to dig into the mess, I dropped the shotgun and grabbed the rifle. I shouted for them to stop and leave one more time, but they continued ignoring. The rifle had a hunting scope so I aimed at what I could see as the most mass, and fired.
I heard a pained yelp and then a blood curtling screams and then "Oh my fucking god! Please, God! No!" He ran about half a football field and just crumpled over .. I stood there for hours just praying that the guy would just stand up and keep running, but no. He was dead and wasn't going anywhere. This was a shift after midnight, so I was getting to get a break until the sun came up. I stood there and watch this dead body until my brother came up and saw me standing there frozen. He snatched the rifle out of my hand and started screaming to get my attention and asked what happened. I stood frozen for what felt like hours until I eventually just told him "I shot him...".
National Guard had to come and pick the body up because it was Marshal Law at the time. I was even questioned nor looked at differently, but I killed a person that might have been ore desperate than me, and now that's a thing I have to live with
Well, the way you present the story, it seems like the event would have been a legally justifiable shooting. That isn't likely to make you feel better, but in those conditions, after multiple verbal warnings and a shot fired, when they kept coming you had to assume they weren't just looking for shelter. Whatever their intent was, you had no way to know beyond what you could see, and that was an intruder being persistent. If it hadn't been for the hurricane, you might have had to deal with a trial just because it wasn't a residence, but if it hadn't been after a hurricane, you wouldn't have been there anyway.
So, yeah, you'll have to live with it. Nobody can change that. But I strongly suspect that if anyone had tried to prosecute you, a claim of self defense would have been successful. So maybe don't beat yourself up over it.
As a side note, it would be a 30 06 rifle, which is usually pronounced thirty aught six. Aught is a slightly out of date word that means zero in that context. It is a 30 caliber round that was brought into usage in 1906. That's where the 06 comes from, unlike some rounds where a second number might refer to the length of the bullet. That's less for OP, who probably just ran into autocorrect because it's an archaic word now, and more for anyone scrolling through that was confused
Yes. Autocorrect took control of that and I didn't catch it