A Texas dad was fatally shot on his 29th birthday as he protected his wife and small children from a pair of intruders in their home, according to authorities and new reports.
Brenton Estorffe, an Australian national who lived with his wife, Angeleanna, and two kids, ages 1 and 3, in the Houston suburb of Katy, was gunned down just after midnight Oct. 16 when the suspects broke into the home through the back door, the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
“Try to put yourself through this: somebody breaks the glass. You hear glass breaking at the back of your home,” Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls said at a press conference last week. “Two individuals enter the home. They startle you. You wake up and then all of a sudden a confrontation takes place and then the next thing you hear are gunshots.”
“Brenton gets up, confronts two individuals inside the residence, at which point in time he was shot and killed,” he continued. “Brenton was there to protect his family.”
Angeleanna frantically called 911 in the moments after her husband was shot — and said she couldn’t bring herself to approach her husband’s body on the floor because she was “scared that they’re still there.”
“Help me please, oh!” she said in the recording obtained by local outlet KHOU. “Someone just broke in my house and shot my husband.”
Neither Angeleanna nor the children were hurt.
Investigators are probing whether Estorffe and his family were the intended targets, or if the suspects were looking for the previous owners, ABC News reported.
“[Estorffe] wrestled those two blokes away from his wife and kids,” the victim’s father, Michael Estorffe, told The Australian newspaper. “That’s when they shot him. Unfortunately, he paid the highest price.”
Authorities asked the public to keep an eye out for a light-colored, four-door sedan with a sunroof, and shared a video of the vehicle.
Nels added that a third person could be involved in the crime.
“They’re going to pay for this,” Nels declared. “You came into the wrong county.”
“[Estorffe] gave his life in defense of his family,” the sheriff added. “What more honor can you bestow upon an individual than that?”
A GoFundMe page set up to support the family had raised more than $41,000 of its $50,000 goal by Tuesday morning.
“They have been deprived of a great father and loving husband,” the description for the page said. “No amount of preparation could have prepared them for this adversity.”
