A 24-year-old man was sentenced Friday in Pierce County Superior Court to more than nine years in prison for participating in a burglary in which a Tacoma homeowner shot his partner to death.
A jury last month found Zane Cavender guilty of residential burglary.
Cavender and Anthony McDougald in May 2011 broke into the detached garage of a home near South 38th Street and Pacific Avenue. The homeowner, alerted by his barking dog, grabbed a pistol and went to the garage to investigate, court records show.
The man yelled at the burglars to come outside. Cavender and McDougald ran from the garage right at the homeowner, who, fearing for his life, fired at the men, the records show. Both were hit. McDougald died at the scene.
The homeowner, a soldier who’d recently returned home from a deployment in Afghanistan, applied a field dressing to Cavender’s wound until police arrived.
McDougald and Cavender, who’d been released from prison a month before the burglary, apparently had stolen items from the homeowner’s house before moving on to the garage, prosecutors said.
Deputy prosecutors Karen Watson and Kevin McCann successfully sought an exceptional sentence for Cavender, telling Judge Beverly Grant that his crime was worse than a normal burglary because the victims were home at the time and he’d just recently been released from prison.
“The victim homeowner acted to protect his family, and the surviving burglar was held accountable,” Prosecuting Attorney Mark Lindquist said in a news release.”
Adam Lynn: 253-597-8644 adam.lynn@thenewtribune.com
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