Shalitta Greer, a 45-year-old mother and grandmother from Florida, returned home Thursday for the first time since April, when she was arrested in the Turks and Caicos Islands after a stray bullet was found inside her luggage.
A judge in the Turks and Caicos Islands on Thursday morning handed down a 23-week suspended sentence and ordered him to pay a $1,500 fine to the fifth and latest American to be detained in the islands since February on suspicion of possessing ammunition.
“I’m happy. I’m ecstatic,” Greer told reporters upon arriving in Orlando on Thursday evening, adding that she was most looking forward to spending time with her family and eating “good food.”
She is one of five Americans arrested for the same crime on the island since February while returning from vacation; the others being Brian Hagerich, 39, of Pennsylvania; Ryan Watson, 40, of Oklahoma; Tyler Wenrich, 31, of Virginia; and Michael Lee Evans, 72, of Texas.
Greer said he was “very pleased” with the outcome of his case but had no plans to return to Turks and Caicos.
Guards found ammunition in the bags of all five Americans as they were returning from the island. All five were given suspended sentences, ordered to pay fines and then allowed to return home.
Greer was arrested in May after allegedly finding a stray bullet in the lining of his bag after recently purchasing a gun for self-defense.
She told Fox News Digital in May that her brother runs a store that sometimes closes at night and that she needed a firearm in case of an emergency.
“I had no intention of hurting anybody or anything. It’s just my own fear. It’s not a game,” Greer said, adding that he had “no other reason” to own a gun other than to protect himself while he closed his brother’s store.
She added that she had never fired a gun in her life.
After his arrest, Greer temporarily lived in a rented home with Watson and Hagerich.
Speaking together to Fox News Digital via Zoom, the three described how they became friends during their weeks on the island waiting for justice.
“It was important for her to have a room,” Watson said of Grier at the time. “Hearing her story and what she went through, being tied to a chair and having to sleep on the floor…it’s heartbreaking. We wanted to make sure she had a safe place, a comfortable bed to sleep in and privacy. There was no question. We were fortunate to be able to include Shalitta in this plan because we are all…a support system for each other. We have become one big family.”
