you don t know who he is. you know it s somebody that you don t know. and they have crossed that invisible line from outdoors to indoors. and they are, by that definition alone, i would say, a threat to me. well, you ve got to be able to articulate the threat. reporter: and kaarma told investigators there was a real threat. the garage was full of tools the intruder could grab and use against him. i imagined an ax flying through the air and hitting me in the skull. reporter: and kaarma said he was positive he heard that scraping sound just moments before he fired the shotgun. i m describing the sound when i say it hit okay. but what i m picturing in my head is i m going to die. reporter: to hear markus kaarma tell it, he d faced down a threat. it was kill or be killed. and that was justifiable homicide. the young soccer star who was by now in the morgue must have had a darker side that many didn t see. detectives decided to dig deeper into the lives of both diren
dede and the man who shot him. what they learned would only deepen this mystery. coming up true or false. diren was committing a crime. he was. but was diren the only one breaking the law? he said, showtime. he said janelle makes the statement, it s showtime. exactly. there would be anger and astonishment on both sides. when dateline extra continues. here i go again on my own goin down the only road i ve ever known like a drifter i was born to walk alone! you re a drifter? i thought you were kevin s dad. little bit of both. if you ride, you get it. geico motorcycle. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more.
911. reporter: and while kaarma said he feared for his life, police found no weapon, no ax or tool near diren s body. the teenager was unarmed. and another red flag. kaarma said he couldn t see into the garage. but cops talked to the doctors who treated diren, and they examined the shotgun pellet patterns on the garage wall. he says he can t see anything. yet he s able to track a moving person in the garage and hits him two out of four times. one, two, three, four. i didn t believe he was just randomly shooting from right to left. and so you re thinking to yourself, this does not look like a justifiable shooting? no. at this point, it s it s looking like we have a deliberate homicide. reporter: the county attorney s office agreed. detective baker delivered the news. so we just talked to a prosecutor. she wants you to be taken into custody. so that s what s going to happen. for what? for homicide. what? reporter: seemingly stunned, kaarma borrowed the detective
either, but he says you have to follow the law. reporter: defense attorney ryan insisted that markus karma was guilty of nothing more than protecting his family. this is your house. you defend it within your house as you choose to defend it. reporter: by the time the defense rested, those closest to diren dede thought that markus kaarma s lawyers had redefined what this case was about. who diren was kind of got lost in all of this, didn t it? uh-huh. a lot of the stuff that i heard and read made him sound like some sort of foreigner who just came here to stir the pot and make trouble. and commit crimes? right. yeah. reporter: but to prosecutors andrew paul and jennifer clark, the real criminal in this case was markus kaarma, who was, plain and simple, a murderer. the fact is that the defendant was angry and vengeful. he knew that it was a kid coming in his garage. he has his 12-gauge in his hand,
and because he felt his life was threatened by the movement, specifically, of mr. dede, he had to take the steps, unfortunately, to take his life. the danger of a burglar is when there s a confrontation, and they all want to escape, and they ll do whatever they can to get away. reporter: the defense said there was no debate over one central fact. diren dede went into that garage to steal. and on the stand, kaarma s lawyer got diren s friend robby to admit that despite warnings, diren didn t see much wrong with garage hopping. i think diren never felt like it was a crime. but you were warning him. you were telling him it wasn t right. it was reckless. it was dangerous, right? yeah. yeah. like, i understand on this way. but he maybe didn t understand. reporter: in fact, the defense suggested that diren was part of a local burglary ring that was stealing more than just beer and may have been behind the previous break-ins at the