An unfortunate one cleaner at Indiana made a fatal mistake that ultimately cost her her life when she went into the wrong house to clean, prompting the owner behind the door to attack by putting a bullet in her head because he feared she was facing intruders, authorities said Friday.
Officers in Indiana have completed their preliminary investigation into the cleaning lady’s death, and the Whitestown Police Department’s findings have been officially forwarded to the Boone County District Attorney’s Office to decide whether or not to file homicide charges in the tragic incident, which unfolded Wednesday (11/5/2025).
The victim was named Maria Florida Rios Perez de Velazquez and she was 32 years old, according to police and local media reports she was an immigrant from Guatemala, mother of four children.
He was struck in the head by a bullet fired by one of the home’s two occupants behind the door when Rios Perez and her husband arrived there before dawn, police spokesman John Jarkas said.
The occupants of the house had already called to immediate action, to report a possible burglary in progress.
Police officers who arrived at the scene found Rios Perez fatally wounded and concluded that the victim and her husband were “members of a cleaning crew who arrived by mistake at the wrong address.”
A family is demanding justice after the horrific shooting death of a mother of four who showed up to clean the wrong house. Police say the Indiana homeowner shot the woman through the front door, and she died in her husband’s arms. @AaronKatersky reports. https://t.co/ZIZpWZQQ7p pic.twitter.com/VaKAPHGaZC
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) November 8, 2025
No evidence of an attempted burglary was found, according to police.
The victim’s husband, Mauricio Velasquez, told the Indianapolis Star that he and his wife they thought they were at the right address and they double-checked before approaching the house.
According to the Star report, Mr. Velasquez said the couple were standing in the porch of the house and was looking for the key to enter, in Whitestown, a suburb of Indianapolis, when he came under fire.
Police have not released the identity of the occupants of the home, nor the person who pulled the trigger, calling the investigation “complex, delicate and evolving.”
Officers in Indiana have completed their preliminary investigation into the cleaner’s death, and the Whitestown Police Department’s findings have been officially forwarded to the Boone County District Attorney’s Office for a determination. whether or not criminal charges for homicide will be brought in the tragic incident, which unfolded on Wednesday (5/11/2025).
The circumstances of the murder they are also reminiscent of other cases of recent years in the USA, in which homeowners opened fire on people who went to wrong addresses because they thought they were intruders.
The county attorney handling the case in Whitestown will need to consider a local law in Indiana that allows residents inside their own homes to use potentially deadly force to defend themselves if they have reasonable cause to believe they are being threatened by an intruder.