Malachi Heisler shoots and kills home intruder and discovers it is his dad John

Malachi Heisler saw a man, his 46-year-old dad John, pointing a BB gun at his mother — John’s former partner — inside the family home at Lealman, in Pinellas County, Florida, after he had tried to break in through a window, Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

“In fear for his life, Malachi Heisler fired his weapon striking (John) Heisler in the upper body,” the statement said.

Malachi’s mother Jolene Andrews, 46, and her 47-year-old boyfriend Alton Pyles had got up to investigate the window being smashed and encountered a man in full black tactical gear, including a ski mask and thigh holsters, who pointed a gun at them. He had another BB gun in his holster.

Andrews and Pyles ran back inside and tried to keep out the intruder but he forced his way inside. When the man grabbed Andrews and tried to force her to the ground, she realised it was her former partner and father of her children from his voice and a tattoo on his arm.

Pyles called for help and Malachi opened his bedroom door. He saw the masked intruder had a gun and grabbed his rifle.

“He pointed it at my mother first,” Malachi said. “Then when I came out of the room, he pointed it at me. So picture in my head — it was a standoff between me and him. He had his pistol and I had my rifle,” Malachi told WFLA.

“A bullet is a bullet, one shot, you’re dead.”

Malachi later told Bay News 9: “It’s not something you prepare for. You don’t expect a burglary every day. You don’t expect the person to be who it is.”

John Heisler had a restraining order taken out against him by his family in April which had recently been extended until May 2016. In April, Heisler broke into the home in Lealman but he could not be charged as it was technically his home, Bay News 9 reported. He was arrested on a gun charge and released on $10,000 bail.

“He wasn’t a good dad, no f**king father of the year awards,” Malachi, wearing a bandanna due to what he said was ‘the smell of death’, told WFLA.

“He wanted to scare us first, then kill us when we were afraid,” he told the Tampa Bay Times.

Malachi’s 13-year-old sister, Magenta, was in the home at the time and was unharmed.

“It’s probably better that she stayed asleep,” Malachi told Bay News 9.

When sheriff’s deputies first arrived with “raised voices, canine units, (and) guns pointed at (him),” Malachi said he “felt like (he had) made the wrong decision.”

Crime scene technicians carried bags of evidence out of the house. A tow truck driver removed a white sedan from the driveway. But after hours of questioning, sheriff’s investigators brought the family back to the house on Tuesday morning