He’d been with the locksmith company less than a year and was still learning.
Taking the locks off the front door of this tan-and-brick house on English Park Court would be 57-year-old Mark Randall’s first time helping with an eviction.
He didn’t know what to expect -- certainly not bullets flying inches from his head.
Certainly not that thick pounding in his ears, blood and adrenaline pumping as he tried to make sense of it all:
The door barricaded shut, even after the deadbolt had been pried off. The sheriff ramming into the door, breaking it and the two-by-four that kept it closed.
Then, the man in the doorway holding a handgun.
The two — was it just two? — shots fired, narrowly missing the locksmiths.
People are also reading…
The man who’d fallen in the doorway. The Lancaster County sheriff's deputy on the other side of the door who’d yelled at the man and pulled his own gun and fired maybe two or three times, killing 64-year-old Doug DaMoude.
DaMoude, who bought the house in 1998, was issued a three-day notice on Dec. 9 to vacate the home after Papillion-based Homebuyer’s Incorporated, or HBI, bought the property. Later that month, the company filed a complaint for forcible entry in Lancaster County Court.
May 30 was the third time Husker Lock and Key locksmiths had been called to the home. On the first time, they had changed the locks and the second time, HBI didn’t have current paperwork to serve the eviction.
After the first visit, said John Firestine of Husker Lock and Key, he received a certified letter from DaMoude, who threatened if Firestine came on his property again, he would sue him for “no less than $1 million.â€
Though the four deputies believed DaMoude was inside at the time and they were stationed around the home when the door was rammed open, the locksmiths said they had not been warned of possible danger. Randall and Firestine were just two or three feet from DaMoude when he started firing, they said.
“Nobody knew this man would be armed,†Randall said.
DaMoude’s actions Friday were out of character, said First Lutheran Pastor Dan Warnes.
DaMoude was an active member of the church. He sang in the choir, served as an usher, helped serve communion. Just Wednesday, he had attended a Bible study course.
Warnes had spoken with DaMoude about some problems, he said, but nothing beyond that of a normal pastor-parishioner conversation.
“Nobody can believe this happened,†Warnes said. “(DaMoude) wouldn’t harm a single living thing — except for maybe a fish.â€
DaMoude’s obituary describes him as an avid outdoorsman. In front of his house sits a covered Bass Buggy boat that neighbors David and Nikole Kitsmiller said he brought back to his driveway in the last couple of months.
The Kitsmillers live just two houses down from the one surrounded with yellow crime tape. David and their 14-year-old daughter were watching out their patio window when they heard the gunshots.
They had never seen much of their neighbor before but tried to piece together his story. After he plastered his windows and garage with signs with many variations of “No Trespassing,†they Googled his name and learned he no longer owned the home.
“He was just going on about his business like nothing was wrong,†Nikole Kitsmiller said.
Warnes said he never thought he would ever give a Sunday sermon about the importance of uniting in faith after something like this. And he never thought he would read DaMoude’s name outside of the church bulletin.
“This is just so foreign to Doug,†Warnes said. “He was a pleasant, fun-loving guy. A teddy bear of a man. I’m in shock.â€