Happened to my wife’s grandmother about 15 years ago while we were still dating:
Her husband had just passed away about a year previously, but she’d been going down to the library and volunteering — exercise and socialization.
This was in the winter, so her walk back was while it was getting dark. The library closed at 5 and then there was some extra stuff to do before everyone actually left and on this particular night she turned down a ride home from another volunteer because, dammit, she needed to stay in shape.
The house is about a mile away through some lightly wooded area in south Texas, and as she’s about halfway home she notices someone behind her. He’s walking the same direction and gaining on her, which in itself isn’t all that particular (she’s old and thus not particularly fast) but in this case he “seems vaguely sinister”.
They keep walking, pretty soon he’s right behind her. Then he falls into pace, just staying behind her — now she knows that something’s up. But she’s almost home, she can see the top of her driveway coming up, and she leaves her lights on so it’ll look like someone’s home when she’s walking in. She just needs to make it another 150 yards… Then 100… All that time, she said he was so close that she could feel his breath on her neck.
Maybe 50 yards, it happens: Strong had on her shoulder, “Okay bitch, don’t turn around and hand over your purse or I’ll fucking cut ya.”
She stops for a second, then takes one big step forward, turns and shoots the guy in the neck with the .38 she kept in her purse. Hey, it’s Texas.
The guy spent the next five years in a prison hospital before he died of complications. My wife’s grandmother passed last year — up to the end, she lamented that she’d pulled the trigger too soon: “My late husband would have been embarrassed to know I missed.”
