Saline Township, Michigan

From the Ann Arbor News of October 25, 2005

Sentencing upsets victimized couple

Home invader gets 7 to 20 years in prison

Amilee Sharp wasn't going to answer the door.

After hearing a rapid succession of doorbell rings and with a previous burglary in the back of her mind, she wasn't going to greet unexpected visitors to her Saline Township home while her husband was out.

But she didn't have that choice.

Within a minute, she heard the door being kicked down and the mother of two did what came instinctively - she called 911 and grabbed the family pistol.

Randy Fraley, the man she confronted in the kitchen, bolted out of the house with his arms in the air, yelling for her not to shoot, police reports said.

Determined to stop him without inflicting a mortal wound, Sharp fired into the getaway car where his female accomplice awaited. Four of the nine shots pierced the vehicle, leaving it disabled a few blocks away on Braun Road.

Fraley and his girlfriend jumped from the vehicle unharmed, but left a trail that investigators with the Michigan State Police, the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department and the Livingston and Washtenaw Narcotics Enforcement Team followed. That was in January.

On Monday, Sharp and her husband, Michael, watched with some relief but largely in frustration as Fraley, 36, was sentenced to 7 to 20 years in prison. He pleaded guilty earlier to first-degree home invasion and conspiracy to commit home invasion in two separate Washtenaw County cases.

They were frustrated, in part, because it was at least the sixth prison sentence that Fraley, an admitted crack addict, has received since 1989 for property crimes, state prison records show. He was last paroled in March 2004.

They're also upset because they don't believe his plea agreement and prison sentence will likely end a cycle of crime and punishment that could involve them again.

(More about this felon's history)