Posted on 03/21/2006 1:38:11 AM PST by beaversmom
BATAVIA, Ohio -- A man who neighbours say was devoted to his meticulously kept lawn is charged with murder in the shooting of a 15-year-old boy who apparently walked across his yard.
Charles Martin, 66, of Union Township, near this city about 30 kilometres east of Cincinnati, shot next-door neighbour Larry Mugrage in the chest with a shotgun about 3:30 p.m. Sunday, police said. The youth was pronounced dead at hospital.
Martin was being held without bond yesterday in Clermont County Jail. Police said he told them he had several disputes about neighbours walking on his lawn. But Union Township police Lieut. Scott Gaviglia said Martin had no criminal history and last called police in 2003.
Martin called 911 on Sunday, saying in a calm voice: "I just killed a kid."
He also tells the dispatcher: "It's been going on for five years ... I've been harassed by him and his parents for five years. Today just blew it up."
STUNS NEIGHBOURHOOD
The deadly shooting stunned those in the neighbourhood and students at Glen Este High School, where Martin was a freshman, and grief counsellors were on hand yesterday.
"I think there's a great deal of shock, for two reasons: because of the age of the victim and just how this occurred, killed over some grass," Gaviglia said.
Neighbours said Martin lived alone quietly, often sitting out in front of his one-storey home with its neat lawn, well-trimmed shrubbery and flag pole with U.S. and navy flags flying.
In his fenced backyard, he had several birdhouses and a shed painted like a small red barn with white trim.
Yes, especialy after dark.
IC
Are there any particular legal limitations?
If a child does it, im sure it doesnt count the same as an adult, does it?
A better lesson is to be friends with your neighbor as much as possible. Get to know them on a personal basis.
If you DO inadvertently bother your neighbor, apologize.
Don't let some petty peeve between you make for bad neighbors.
I know, there are neighbors that you just can't do this with but they are few and far between.
Thank you. I just came across this thread and although the murder was not justified, I could tell there was more to the story than what was printed in the article.
You saved me the time it would have taken to formulate my own post, so I will just say I agree with you.
After dark, tresspass takes on a whole different meaning.My earlier post mentioned that in the light of day I had a duty to confront them first. In the dark of night I have no such duty to confront them first. Also note this would be on my property. Not long ago a man was bowhunting and when he came out of the woods it was getting dark, he saw a man stealing his pick up truck from the side of the road. He shot him with an arrow and killed him, no billed by the GJ, just as it should be. But that was theft, not tresspass.
Back off. Now your oppositional-defiant syndrome is kicking in. My post did not describe "you" but you took offense to pointing out the obvious likely control freak implications of this lawn nazi case. A guy who shoots an unarmed teenager over a lawn issue is probably a "psycho" of some kind. I did not call you a "psycho" but your continuing obsession on the matter does make one wonder...
Lighten up.
"Bart Simpson, call your office..."
I am afraid you do make a good point the old people today are less than respected by teenagers and other people as well. I live across from Cincinnati and heard this on the local news last night and it is all so sad. You got a kid dead and an old man going to prison. I wonder how much trouble the kids in the neighborhood gave the old man? And if the guy had any friendly neighbors at all. Sometimes it helps when people are neighborly but today we all know that just isn't like it used to be. But then this story reflects how things are today!
I hope that's a really bad pic of his lawn... regardless, how compulsive to kill someone over some plants. Sounds like the homeowner was too tightly wound and at some point someone was going to get killed. I do feel terrible for the kids family.
Think I just heard Rita Crosby going to cover this story tonight.
The mail box's out in out area were all getting trashed.
We sunk a piece of 6" well pipe 5 feet down with plenty of cement around and in the pipe. Welded a new 5/16 steel box
to the top and waited to see what happened. So far it hasn't been hit.
Exactly. My lawn is currently covered with a foot of pretty wet snow. By noon it will be decorated with a couple of world class snow forts, and the snowball fight will be ON! Later this spring it will resume it's normal role as a wiffle-ball field.
Do you generally accept the word of those who are Loco en la cabesa?
Think I just heard Rita Crosby going to cover this story tonight.
Look at it like this...
It is a snowy night and a young lady with her two kids is driving down the road. She hits a patch of black ice and the car spins out of control. She finally gains a little control of the car but is unable to move out of the way of a mailbox. The car hits the mail box and the car flips over because of the road conditions and the reinforced mailbox. She and one of her children are killed and the other has lost her mother, because someone decided to place a hazard next to the road that should have just been a wooden mailbox.
Although I understand the point of the homeowner and think kids who intentionally destroy mailboxes should be horsewhipped, the potential danger to an innocent third party is too great to allow the mailbox. It's kind of like setting up a shotgun to shoot when ever your door is opened. Although the intent maybe to get the criminal breaking in, the possibility of killing an innocent third party is too great to allow it.
This would have been the courts (state) perspective.
Where in that photo do you think the kid was standing when the guy pulled the shotgun on him? If he was in the street, then he had already moved off the property at which point the incident should have stopped. If the man went after him on to the street to continue a provocative confrontational encounter that changes the perspective on this.
Well, he's going to get to spend the rest of his miserable life looking at a prison recreation yard. No lawns in this guy's future.
"If your new BMW 725 (or what ever you really valued and put a lot of love and work into) was spray painted once a week or so by the kid next door, who denied it and was supported by his parents, and the police did nothing..........well what might you do?"
Me? I'd park the Beemer in the garage. That's what I'd do.
I understand that now, but what i don't understand:
Why do people still try to steal in Texas?!
Can't they go to another state? Sounds like a wrong place to steal.
"My fantasy was to install a mailbox with a cement foundation below frost, a steel-n-cement pillar, and a steel mailbox bolted to the top--all neatly trimmed with wood to look like a plain old mailbox..."
Oh, it's been done. Works really well. The first kid to try to break it breaks his arm, instead.
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