Eric Russell Hinks, a newly minted real estate agent who left the military last month after nine years of service because he feared injury in Iraq, was shot and critically wounded while soliciting potential listings in a Diamond Bar neighborhood Tuesday.
"He knocked on the wrong door," said Det. Laura French of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
John Steven Heesch, 29, of Diamond Bar was charged with assault with a firearm Thursday, and his 27-year-old brother, James Howard Heesch, was charged with two drug counts in connection with the shooting.
Hinks, a 29-year-old father of four who recently passed the exam to obtain his real estate license, went to the well-kept neighborhood to drop off holiday wreaths that his wife had made for his aunt and uncle. Afterward, he walked along Hipass Drive scouting houses, French said.
John Heesch saw Hinks' truck as he drove past and became concerned when he saw him walking up to the front door of his brother's house, French said. Armed with a shotgun, John Heesch ran to his brother's home, French said, where James Heesch was allegedly growing marijuana.
Hinks, clean-cut with short blond hair, wearing jeans and a white dress shirt, knocked on the door. When no one answered, he left a business card and turned to leave. It was 6:45 p.m.
At that point, John Heesch fired, French said. No words were exchanged.
Hinks fell to the ground; nine pieces of the shot punctured his body. His intestines were mangled. A lung collapsed.
James Heesch dashed to the porch. Hinks asked him to call his wife, Bobbie, 26.
Bobbie Hinks said when she answered her phone, James Heesch told her, "Your husband wants to talk to you."
"Honey, I've been shot," Eric Hinks told her before he fainted.
Bobbie Hinks called 911. Then she tried to call her husband back. James Heesch answered. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," she remembered him saying.
Bobbie Hinks said Heesch told her very little, but he did give her his address. After getting her father to watch the children -- Breanna, 5, Hunter, 3, and 5-month-old twins Harleigh Jean and Dustin Robert -- she raced to the scene.
On Thursday, the family grappled with the shooting.
"He went from National Guard to real estate because he didn't want to be shot in Iraq," said Ryan Bethel, 23, Bobbie's brother. "But now he's in an intensive care unit because he's been shot over here."
