COVENTRY TWP.: Jonathan Fillinger is glad he didn’t have to pull the trigger.
As his wife and young child hid nearby in their Robinson Avenue home shortly after 6 p.m. Monday, Fillinger, 34, trained his Springfield XD-S 9 mm handgun on an intruder about 5 feet away from him in their kitchen.
Just minutes earlier, the couple were feeding their 1½-year-old son in his highchair in the dining room of the home they purchased this past June.
“We bought out here because it is pretty quiet and nice,” Jonathan said.
Their outdoor lights were on, showing in part the long wooden fence they took all summer building to keep their son safe as he played in their large backyard. Traffic whizzed by on busy Robinson Avenue. The Fillingers’ two cars were parked in the driveway. Their Christmas tree was lit up. The side door to the home was unlocked.
Amanda Fillinger heard a noise in the kitchen.
“She said, ‘Oh my God. Somebody’s in the kitchen,’ ” Jonathan recalled Tuesday. “I get up. I go to the kitchen. I don’t know who the guy is. So I told her, ‘Get my pistol.’ ”
Amanda ran and got the handgun. Then she ran again, picked up a cellphone and called 911.
Held at gunpoint
The bizarre kitchen standoff ended peaceably about eight minutes later when Summit County sheriff’s deputies arrived and arrested Tallmadge resident Thomas R. Duncan, 51, as he stood in the Fillingers’ kitchen.
The deputies couldn’t get into the house through the side door. Duncan had locked it after he walked in.
“I held him at gunpoint. He seemed out of it like he didn’t know where he was at first,” Jonathan said. “He was like standing there in shock. And I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ I think he thought he was at his house for a minute. ... He had some of my belongings, which I didn’t even notice at the time.”
Amanda said she grabbed the toddler out of the highchair.
“I was holding him, sort of like in between the dining room and the living room. So, I was out of harm’s way but still could see if something happened to [Jonathan],” she said. “And I was watching out the front door for the cops.”
Worry over weapon
Jonathan, who has been hunting since he was 10 years old, has a concealed carry permit.
“I don’t usually carry a gun, to be honest,” he said.
As he stood in the kitchen, he worried that Duncan might have a gun, too.
“He went and started to reach into his pockets and I said, ‘OK, man, don’t reach in your pockets. I don’t know if you have a gun.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t want to shoot you. But if you reach in your pockets again I’m going to shoot you.’ …He didn’t move after that,” Jonathan said. “I had 911 on the phone. I was like, ‘You better tell the sheriffs to step it up because if he reaches in his pockets again, I don’t know if he has a gun.’ ”
The battery in Jonathan’s cellphone died. Amanda quickly gave him her phone.
Intruder takes a call
Duncan spoke a little bit during the confrontation, the Fillingers said.
“At one point [Duncan] said he wanted to go downstairs,” Amanda said.
“I was like, no, you’re not,” Jonathan said.
Then Duncan said he would just leave the house, adding “I’ll get a ride,” Jonathan said.
“I said, ‘Oh no, you’re not leaving. Your ride is on the way,’ ” Jonathan said.
At one point, the intruder answered his cellphone, Amanda said.
“He said, ‘Hello. Nothing much, man.’ He’s like, ‘Can I call you back in a little bit?’ And he hangs up like nothing’s going on,” Jonathan said. “Dude, you’re standing in somebody’s kitchen with a gun pointed at you and you’re on the phone like ‘Oh, I’m just hanging out. Let me give you a call back in a little bit.’ ”
At one point Jonathan told the 911 dispatcher that he thought Duncan wasn’t a threat “because he seemed whacked out of his mind.”
Duncan also said that “he was here with a friend, so I thought there was a second guy,” Jonathan said. But no one else was found.
Duncan was unarmed and did not put up resistance when the deputies arrived, the Fillingers said.
The deputies said at that point Duncan faced disorderly conduct charges because there was no forced entry and the house did not have any “No Trespassing” signs on it, the couple said.
Then they found some of the Fillingers’ belongings with Duncan, which led to the filing of burglary charges.
“I wasn’t going to press charges at first,” Jonathan said. “I thought the guy needed some help. ... I felt bad for the guy, almost.”
But after later talking with authorities, the couple said they are happy Duncan is facing burglary charges.
“We were a nervous wreck last night,” Amanda said. “You feel violated. You’re in your own home and you have your little 1½-year-old kid and you’re just having dinner. And the next thing you know, a stranger is in your kitchen and you don’t know what they’re capable of. You don’t know who it is.”
“It shook me up pretty good,” Jonathan said.
Duncan was charged with felony burglary and taken to the Summit County Jail. Sheriff’s spokesman Bill Holland said Duncan has a history of drug and burglary-related arrests.
The homeowner, Holland added, faces no criminal charges.
“I didn’t want to shoot the guy,” Jonathan said. “But if he would have been a threat or came at me or made threatening gestures, you have to do what you have to do to defend your family. ... I’ve always had a gun for home protection.”
“We’re glad nobody got hurt,” Amanda said. “Who wants to live with that the rest of their lives?”
Beacon Journal reporter Rick Armon contributed to this story.
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him @JimMackinnonABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/JimMackinnonABJ.