A Pennsylvania man will be spending the next few months in jail after shooting an Instacart driver who was delivering groceries to the man's home after a lack of communication and a leap to conclusions between the gun owner and his spouse. 

Jessica Sabo placed an order on Instacart on the evening of January 18th, but neglected to tell her husband that a delivery would soon be made. For some reason, when she got an alert on her phone from an outdoor camera showing a man on her property soon after, Sabo thought that it must be an intruder and not the delivery driver she was expecting. After telling her husband about the suspected intruder, Nicholas Sabo retrieved a handgun and fired a single shot at the man, who was not there to break into the home. 

He then came back inside the house and unloaded the gun. Vanessa Sabo called 911.

Nicholas Sabo told officers his wife told him someone was trying to break into their trailer.

“He gave us a brief statement but it was not in writing and it didn’t provide any justification for the shooting,” Wolfe said.

Police noted Wilchombe’s wife Jessica Thomas and her daughter, Olivia Thomas, were with Wilchombe in the car and were witnesses to the incident.

Jessica Thomas said the three were making a delivery from Weis Markets and provided Instacart paperwork verifying the scheduled delivery.

She told officers Wilchombe left the car to make the delivery and returned bleeding from the leg.

Sabo ended up pleading guilty to one count of aggravated assault, and was sentenced this week to six months in jail and 4 1/2 years on probation; a relatively light sentence considering he could have been ordered to spend the next decade in prison. 

Multiple mistakes were made on the part of both Sabos, in my opinion. Jessica Sabo didn't necessarily need to tell her hubby that an Instacart order was on the way beforehand, but why she came to the conclusion that the man was there with ill intentions when she knew that someone would be coming to her house is beyond me. 

Nicholas Sabo, meanwhile, apparently took no steps to determine the intentions of the man on his property before firing the shot that wounded Wilchcombe, which is a problem in and of itself. Under Pennsylvania's self-defense statute, the "use of force upon or toward another person is justifiable when the actor believes that such force is immediately necessary for the purpose of protecting himself against the use of unlawful force by such other person on the present occasion." 

The problem is that Wilchcombe didn't demonstrate any evidence of using unlawful force against either Nicholas Sabo or his wife, so while Sabo didn't have a duty to retreat when presented a threat, there was also no real threat present that would justify his shooting the Instacart driver. 

Consider this a cautionary tale about what not to do when you see a stranger near your home. This situation could easily have been avoided entirely with a little common sense and communication on the part of the couple. Not only has Nicholas Sabo lost his freedom for a few months, but as the result of his guilty plea to a felony, he's lost his right to keep and bear arms and to protect his family with a firearm for the foreseeable future.