Sheriff's Office Charges Man Shot By Sarasota Grandmother

Turns out the had a good aim.

The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office arrested Michael Sterlace, 26, of 4160 Fruitville Road, Apt. 5, Sarasota, for the Saturday night burglary on the 4600 block of Stone Ridge Trail where the grandmother fired two shots at the suspect through a door.

Detectives found Sterlace at Sarasota Memorial Hospital Monday afternoon seeking treatment for a gunshot wound to his right arm. An anonymous tip led detectives to Sterlace's apartment where they had learned of Sterlace being in the hospital, according to the sheriff's office.

The woman said in the call that she fired her .38 caliber gun twice through the door. The suspect screamed, she said, got into his vehicle and fled the scene. 

"I'm by myself and I keep a gun just for security reasons, and he was stepping in when I came out," the woman, identifying herself as a grandmother, says in the call. ... I was just so frightened by the noise."

"I never used it except for target practice," the woman said as she cried, relaying her account to the dispatcher.

Detectives searched Sterlace’s apartment, and his girlfriend Taylor Dammann, 22, was also arrested when she refused to provide the keys to a 2009 Infiniti where evidence was being stored, according to the sheriff's office. Detectives seized her vehicle, too, and a 2004 Ford SUV with Tampa Bay Buccaneers plates used in Saturday’s crime for further investigation.

Sterlace is charged with burglary of an occupied dwelling, and Dammann is charged with obstruction without violence, according to the probable cause affidavit. 

Sterlace told detectives that he was "randomly shot while fishing near the victim's neighborhood" on Saturday, according to the affidavit.

The sheriff's office considers Sterlace and Dammann suspects in a multiple other recent residential burglaries.

Sterlace was convicted of a burglary in 2009 and was convicted of several cases of fraud, according to court records.