Belfair man sentenced to 19 years for shooting intruder in shower

A Mason County Superior Court judge sentenced a Belfair man to roughly 19 years in prison Tuesday for fatally shooting an intruder in a shower on his property in April 2017.

A jury had found Bruce Fanning, 62, guilty of second-degree murder last month. Prosecutors originally filed first-degree murder charges.

At his sentencing, Fanning insisted he was justified in shooting Nathaniel Rosa. He said he feels sorry for Rosa’s family, but it was in self-defense.

“I’m sorry,” Fanning said in court. “I’ve asked everybody along the way, of every lifestyle and occupation ... and everybody has said they would’ve done the same exact thing. So, why am I here?”

Rosa was 31 years old and working as a paraeducator at Woodmoor Elementary School in Bothell at the time of his death. His mother, Linda Rosa, read an emotional statement in court Tuesday, sharing stories and describing her son as compassionate, kind, respectful, loyal, a great listener, and a talented writer.

The last two years and nine months, she said, have been “full of anger, anxiety, frustration, confusion, grief, loss, illness, pain, and fear for my life.”

“The man who murdered my boy gets to live all those days free, living his life — in the same town I’ve lived in for 26 years — as an admitted murderer,” Rosa said Tuesday.

Fanning did not have any criminal history that affected his sentence, and was looking at between 123 months and 220 months, plus 60 months for being armed with a firearm. So, between about 15 years and about 23 years total.

Ahead of sentencing, Fanning’s defense attorney filed a motion for a shorter sentence, which Judge Amber Finlay ultimately denied. She challenged Fanning’s statement that “everyone he talked to said they would’ve done the same thing.”

“I challenge that, because the law of self defense in the state of Washington has been this way for countless years and that is clear that force must be met with reasonable force. Just because someone’s on your property doesn’t give you a right to kill them.”

To which Fanning responded, “What about if they threaten to kill you?”

Fanning was arrested April 1, 2017, after he called 911 to report he had shot and killed an intruder inside his business at 1520 East Trails Road in Belfair. He ran the business out of a house adjacent to the home where he lived.

He discovered an intruder in his shower that morning when he went into the business-residence and told the man — Rosa — to leave, according to court documents. Rosa replied with “non-understandable verbal threats,” court documents say. Fanning said he was afraid and thought the intruder was drunk.

Fanning left the building to get a handgun from his home next door, then returned.

The defense contended during the trial that Rosa had yelled profanities and threatened Fanning when he initially encountered him, based on a phone call Fanning made from jail to a friend. When Fanning returned with a gun, the defense wrote in a trial brief, he was on his way to the only phone that could dial out — to call 911 — when he saw a “poking” motion through the shower curtain.

Fanning shot Rosa three times through the curtain.

According to court documents, Rosa had been partying at a friend’s house two houses down, drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana. He had left the house around 7:30 a.m.

Prosecutors contended Rosa meant to return to his friend’s house and was desperate to get in from the cold. Fanning’s defense attorney argued in trial that Rosa knew what he was doing, and that he was committing a residential burglary when he “cased” the building and kicked in its front door.

Fanning had intruders in his home and office before, the defense brief says, and lives a reclusive lifestyle. The defense also argued at trial that Fanning couldn’t form the intent to kill due to an anxiety disorder and low IQ. Dawn Schottmiller, Fanning’s sister who lives in New York, told The Olympian before her brother’s sentencing that she felt Fanning was “pushed into a corner” that day in 2017.

“I am sorry that a life was lost, I definitely am sorry for that family,” Schottmiller said. “But it doesn’t make it right.”

While responding to the defense’s motion for a shorter sentence, Mason County Prosecutor Michael Dorcy said he didn’t see any evidence of a threat before Fanning got his gun, but that wouldn’t be justification for shooting Rosa.

“I continue to say, even if that were true — which I dispute — once he had removed himself from a position where he perceived he was in danger and chose to arm himself and return to that location, that that’s what takes this case out of any realm of justification or self defense.”

Prosecutors recommended a sentence in the middle of the standard range, and Judge Finlay agreed: She sentenced Fanning to just over 19 years in prison, plus legal fees, and a term of community custody after he’s released that includes a mental health evaluation and any recommended treatment. He’ll also have to pay restitution in an amount to be determined.

Defense attorney Woodrow has filed an appeal.