EAST ST. LOUIS * Jacksie Mae King told police that she woke up about 2 a.m. Tuesday to the sound of someone trying to get into her small house on Gaty Avenue.

King, 87, reached for the pistol that her daughter had given her two months earlier after a man broke into the house, beat King, stole some items and fled.

King could not use the telephone to call for help Tuesday morning. The intruder had ripped the telephone wires from a power box before removing security bars on a window to get into her enclosed porch. He then began removing a storm door to get to the front door of the house.

Police said King fired several shots through the door.

The man on the porch, Larry D. Tillman, 49, was hit in the right shoulder, the bullet traveling through a lung and lodging in his spine. Tillman, who lived about seven blocks away, died on the porch.

"She couldn't call for help and was afraid to go outside," said Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Jim Morrisey. "She didn't know she had hit him. She sat in a chair and kept an eye on the front door with pistol in hand."

For nearly four hours, Tillman lay dead on the front porch. About 6 a.m. King's daughter, Pamela Paulette-Clark, showed up to bring her mother breakfast and entered the house through a rear door. She saw the pistol.

"Her daughter came in and said, 'What's going on?'" Morrisey said.

King, who has lived in the Gaty Avenue house since she was a girl, is doing fine and staying with family, police said.

Robert Shay, St. Clair County chief deputy corner, said it appeared the fatal shot came from a .38-caliber Colt revolver. Morrisey said it had not yet been determined whether King had a permit to own the pistol. It will ultimately be up to the St. Clair County state's attorney's office on whether to bring charges against the woman for the fatal shooting, but Morrisey sees it as unlikely.

"To make it justified, you have to be in fear that somebody is entering your house against your will and you fear that it will result in bodily harm," Morrisey said. "In this case, I don't think there is a problem with that."

The incident Tuesday was similar to one at King's house in December. In both cases, the telephone power was cut and security bars were removed from the porch. But unlike Tuesday, a man made his way into the house in December and beat King badly and robbed her.

No charges were ever filed in the earlier case. Morrisey said evidence taken from the December home invasion would be compared to the break-in on Tuesday to see if Tillman was responsible for both crimes.

Tillman's criminal record is extensive and goes back to 1979. It includes at least two convictions for residential burglary and a robbery conviction.