RAINIER — When a Longview man dressed in dark clothing, carry a multiround gun, burst into a Rainier home in the early hours of January 2022, he didn’t know the now 70-year-old occupant was also armed.
Layne Marie Hoffee Keith said she was lying in bed, waiting for her nature show to start, when the intruder blinded her with a light and demanded she hand over money and jewelry.
“My thought was I got a 50-50 chance of getting out of this,” said Hoffee Keith.
But, she did.
Hoffee Keith retrieved her .22 Derringer in a gun case under her bed, and once the intruder wasn’t directly looking at her, she shot him.
It was the first time she ever pulled the trigger on the two-shot pistol.
“I hesitated a split second, (because) he was still standing there, (then) I shot him again,” she said.
The intruder was Chris Anthony Baratta, 53, of Longview, who pleaded no contest in September to three charges — robbery, burglary and attempted murder — and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In addition to the 14 years, he was also sentenced to post-prison supervision.
Baratta is in debt, court records state, and heard rumors circulating in Longview that Hoffee Keith had cash stashed in her C Street home — a claim Hoffee Keith denies and found to be funny.
With his face covered and carrying a pocketknife and flexicuffs, Baratta broke into Hoffee Keith’s home just before 7 a.m., armed with a CMMG 9mm AR pistol that was equipped with a silencer, court records show.
As he was rummaging through Hoffee Keith’s belongings, she, still on her bed, reached for her gun telling the intruder she was only getting her inhaler.
After being shot, Baratta fell to the ground outside her bedroom and retaliated by firing wildly into Hoffee Keith’s room, court records show.
Bullets ripped through her mattress, damaged her hallway, and struck a mustard bottle on her bed leftover from the corndog she ate before falling asleep, Hoffee Keith said.
Overall, he fired 17 rounds toward Hoffee Keith’s bedroom, but she was never struck; he only stopped firing after his gun was jammed, according to court records.
Eventually Baratta crawled out of the victim’s house and sat on her porch with the gun resting on his lap. Hoffee Keith could hear him yell “It hurts,” in which she replied: “I hope it hurts as much as you scared me.”
Hoffee Keith said she called the police multiple times. When officer’s arrived, the suspect’s co-defendant and ex-wife Deborah Lynn Baratta, 52, of Longview, was getting ready to load her ex-husband into her car, court records state; police arrested him and she drove off.
Deborah Lynn Baratta was later arrested Feb. 2, 2022, when she tried to pick up a firearm she bought in Washington, and admitted to police she drove her ex-husband to the scene and attempted to help him escape, according to the report.
Investigators report they also discovered Chris Anthony Baratta had been engaging in recent “bizarre behavior” including plans to live at a friend’s “well-armed compound” when “civilization falls apart.”
While in jail, Chris Anthony Baratta reportedly said he was “the real victim in this because he was shot in the back.”
