On Friday, a Nevada landlord was found not guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of an unarmed trespasser on a property he owns in a working-class neighborhood east of Reno that prosecutors say he had abandoned nearly a decade ago.

The Associated Press reports that, in February 2014, Wayne Burgarello, a 74-year-old retired schoolteacher, shot and killed Cody Devine and wounded Janai Wilson in a vacant duplex he owns. Burgarello said he acted in self-defense, invoking Nevada’s stand-your-ground laws, which allow property owners to use deadly force against attackers—armed or unarmed, so long as the shooter does not initiate the altercation—who pose an imminent threat.

During the two-week trial, Wilson testified that she had stayed at the duplex intermittently over the course of three years. She said she and Devine were sleeping on the floor when Burgarello open fire, without provocation. Neither was found to have had a gun.

Burgarello told police that Devine’s arm “came up like a gun,” the AP reports. Burgarello’s attorney, Theresa Ristenpart, speculated that he might have mistaken a black flashlight found at the scene for one.

“He did what he had to do to protect his own life,” Ristenpart, said. It was not Burgarello, she said, but Devine and Wilson, who “created the dangerous, threatening situation, trespassing, getting high on meth and being where they shouldn’t be, where they had no right to be.”

Prosecutors alleged that Burgarello had acted with premeditation, seeking revenge for a series of burglaries at the run-down property. According to the AP, Burgarello shot Devine five times—once in the head—and Wilson three times.

After the clerk read the jury’s verdict, the AP reports, Burgarello laughed with his family outside the courtroom. “It’s going to be OK,” he said.

Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.