The Dateline episode ‘The Silhouette’ investigates the 2015 murder of 48-year-old executive Deborah “Debbie” Kelly. She had returned to her San Antonio home after a business trip. She went to bed early. At around 4:30 am, her husband of two years Lars Itzo, 48, (the only other person in the house) called 911 after shooting her. He said he thought she was intruder. He fired one shot with a sawed-off shotgun which hit Kelly in the chest and killed her. The medical examiner testified that Itzo fired at a close range of three to four feet.
Some news outlets compared Itzo’s defense to that of South African paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius, who killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013 claiming he thought there was an intruder in the house. In July 2016, Pistorius’s culpable homicide verdict was overturned and he was convicted of murder and sentenced to six years in prison. In December 2016, Itzo was found guilty of manslaughter (not murder) and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Dateline airs Fridays at 10pm on NBC.
