-Interior floor plans "in most ways identical or extremely similar": That is to be expected but beside the point. Were they furnished apartments so that even the furnishings were the same? If furnished apartments individual residents could decorate personally, no?
-"Guyger...walked down the fourth floor hallway to what she thought was her apartment. She inserted a unique door key..." The exterior of the apartments was the same except the apartment number and, in this case, the bright red mat. She had to have paused at the door to insert the electronic key. How in God's name did she not see the red mat?
-"door slightly ajar...[and]...fully opened under the force of the key...": Not my experience with hotel rooms but I take that as true. The door being slightly ajar would alarm any home owner. Why didn't she do a reality check on whether this was her apartment? Look around, make sure you're at the right door?
-"nearly completely dark": How so, "nearly"? Was there ambient light from the hallway? What if anything could she see about the interior?
The cops need to reconstruct this: Go back there at 10:00 pm, have the door "slightly ajar," insert an electronic card--Does the door open fully under the force of the key?--What can you see about the interior when the door is fully open?
"Nearly completely dark" was an important circumstance for the affiant to put in the warrant affidavit. Why was that important? That is, did that further alarm Guyger? Was it her practice as a female living alone to leave the lights on? If that was not her practice then she would have expected her apartment to be "nearly completely dark" at 10 pm.
"The door being opened alerted Jean"...Believing she had encountered a burglar, described as a large silhouette across the room".
-She did give commands. Whatever commands she gave "were ignored." That is still a good fact for Guyger. So the facts leading her to believe she had a burglar in her apartment were (1) door ajar (2) maybe nearly completely dark inside, and (3) large silhouette (4) commands ignored.
-"Guyger fired...then entered": She shot from outside the apartment. She had not noticed the red mat or apartment number before firing and she was still (a few seconds, I understand) outside the apartment. The point is, Guyger shot and killed a man based upon processed sensory impressions that she processed as consistent with burglary only, three of those, dark inside, door ajar, ignoring commands, vague and ambiguous, and entirely did not process clear, bold, unambiguous sensory impressions, the bright red mat and the lighted apartment number, that would have dispelled the alarm of the third, the large silhouette.
-"Guyger turned on the..lights while on the phone with 911.": Turning lights on after shooting makes sense. Then she would have noticed that she was in the wrong apartment. "Upon being asked where she was located...Guyger returned to the front door to observe the address and discovered she was at the wrong apartment." This is what struck me as particularly important. She only did a reality check when 911 asked her to do a reality check--after she had shot and killed a man. She shot at the vague and ambiguous--at the unreal--and determined the real--which was literally bolded in red and in lights--after. That's manslaughter.
