as robby described it, diren was not the first kid in missoula to go sneaking into unlocked garages. he said the kids weren t after money, credit cards or valuables. this stunt happened often enough that it had a name, garage hopping. and the target was usually beer. the reason for garage hopping, or garage shopping, i ve heard it called both, was for kids to go in and look for alcoholic beverages that they could easily get and take. until this shooting, that sort of wasn t on anybody s radar in law enforcement? no. i had not heard of garage hopping. no. reporter: these three friends of diren s say they ve never gone garage hopping, but they know all about it. you all know people who do it or have done it? yeah. right? they understand it s illegal? uh-huh. yeah. but it seemed harmless? yeah. exactly. i mean, it s just it s like, hey, dude, this is a way for you to get some extra beer, you know, on a saturday night. i mean, did you think to
threaten i threatening. a fire in myrtle beach, south carolina damaged building s and there is no word yet on how that fire began. welcome back to dateline extra. i m tamron hall. homeowner markus kaarma told police he was living in a state of fear, but his answers raised more questions. what really happened in that garage? and what was diren dede doing there in the first place. to find out more, they needed to learn more about the german exchange student. here is josh mankiewicz with deadly exchange. reporter: when he was killed in a neighbor s garage, exchange student diren dede was just two months away from returning to his family in germany. the man who shot him said he feared for his life. and from diren s best friend robby, police learned the teen did enter the garage to steal. as robby described it, diren was
yourself, oh, my god, we didn t tell him how dangerous it could be. but no one knew. no one would be like, hey, don t walk into that garage. you never know if someone is going to shoot you. reporter: robby told police diren had done it before but never taken cash or valuable property. he wasn t a criminal. he was, like, a kid. he was a kid trying to have fun and fit in the group doing what the other guys do, trying to be part of them. reporter: was it really that innocent? true or false. diren was committing a crime. he was. entering somebody else s home, even their garage, that s a crime? yes. even if the door s open? yep. reporter: and if kaarma s life was threatened, he had the right to shoot, didn t he? but as police went over kaarma s story about what happened just before the confrontation, something stood out. when kaarma was describing how his wife first noticed someone was approaching their garage. she s like, showtime.
less than an hour old when the sound of gunshots ricocheted through the prospect neighborhood of missoula, montana. 911. what are you reporting? um, a robbery. okay. what s going on? someone entered into our garage. shots were fired. reporter: a robbery was rare in prospect, but a shooting was unheard of. dash cams captured the chaos as first responders raced to the scene. stay to the right. what s the number? stop, stop, stop. it was all happening just a few hundred feet from where foreign exchange student diren dede lived with his host family. i kind of woke up with a start. heard four loud pops, bang, bang, bang, fairly close together. a pause, and then another bang. reporter: randy heard the sirens and got out of bed. so i went downstairs, just to make sure i could lay my hands on robby and diren.
went, well, just wait here for a second. and then came back and said, i think you guys need to go to the hospital. and that it wasn t good. and as soon as she said that, i thought, gosh, we just passed an ambulance running up there. and he must have been in the ambulance. what happened on that quiet street? did diren and robby stumble into a burglary in progress or a violent home invasion? the police asked robby to answer some questions. while kate and randy rushed to the hospital. it wasn t long after we got there that the e.r. doc came out and explained that his wounds were fatal, and that he was no longer alive. terrible feeling. it was horrible. i went outside the hospital many times and just screamed.