SOUTH BEND — After Brian Palmer’s and Ronda Michael’s garage was broken into for the second time this summer, the couple bought a dog and an alarm system.

On Wednesday, after hearing for the first time that a fatal shooting that occurred behind their home early Sunday was reportedly part of a home invasion, the couple was glad for the added protection.

“It does concern us,” the 30-year-old Palmer said of the shooting, which occurred at a home almost directly behind his and Michael’s. “But we do have a big dog that lets us know (if somebody breaks in), and we have a security system.”

The couple spoke from the living room of their Oakside Street home, which they share with their 14-month-old daughter and Michael’s 14-year-old son.

Michael, 34, said she wasn’t aware of the shooting until about 24 hours after it occurred. All she knows, she said, is that a man was killed.

“It would be nice to know if it was gang-related,” she said. “It’d be nice to know what (the suspects) stole and what they were looking for. It’d be nice to know that.”

Authorities have yet to provide answers to those questions, and that has some who live near where the shooting occurred concerned.

What is known, according to South Bend police, is this: About 5 a.m. Sunday, at least four men entered a home in the 100 block of East Woodside Street. They demanded money and then shot 22-year-old James Martin, who was found dead in the home’s bathroom.

Police said at least three adult women and several children were inside the home at the time of the shooting.

What is unknown is whether Martin, who did not live at the home but was only visiting, or anyone else in the home might have known the suspects; whether anything was taken from the home; and whether any of the witnesses were able to provide descriptions of the suspects to police.

The county’s Metro Homicide Unit is investigating the case. On Monday, in a four-sentence news release, it named the victim and described the homicide as part of a home invasion.

Josh Prior, who lives three doors down from where the shooting was, said he had been following the case on television.

“I’ve been watching the news every night and it’s the same stuff,” the 24-year-old said from his living room, where his two sons, ages 3 and 5, were sleeping on separate couches. “And then last night they didn’t even talk about it on the news.”

Prior said he wasn’t previously aware that the shooting was reportedly part of a home invasion.

“I didn’t even know that,” he said. “That’s kind of scary. Sometimes I leave my front door on the porch unlocked. It’s normally a good neighborhood.”

What the motive might have been for the shooting is something Prior said he’d like to know.

“If it was just random,” he said, “it would be nice to know, ’cause - I mean it’d just be nice to know.”

A neighbor of Prior shared similar concerns. With the suspects still at large, however, she asked that her name not be used.

Megan Mitchell, 26, who lives about a block east of where the shooting occurred, said Wednesday she was concerned it happened in her neighborhood but otherwise not bothered.

“It’s scary,” she said from the front porch of the home she shares with her fiancé. “It’s not something you like to have happen down the street from you.”

Like Michael and Palmer, though, she has invested in protection.

“It’d be nice to know (exactly what happened),” she said. “But I feel pretty safe anyway as it is. We have a pit bull.”

Staff writer Erin Blasko:
(574) 235-6187
eblasko@sbtinfo.com