UNION TOWNSHIP - Fifteen-year-old Larry Mugrage was on his way home to get a video game when he was shot dead, said a neighbor whose teenage stepsons and brother were regular playmates of the victim.
"He was just walking home," Alicia Holt said.
The afternoon shooting followed a confrontation four hours earlier between the teen and another neighbor, 66-year-old Charles Martin, after Mugrage had stepped on the lawn of Martin's Hawthorne Drive home, Holt said.
"He came out cussing at Larry," said Holt, 24, who lives several houses away from Martin's and Mugrage's homes on the same side of the street. "They just had words."
Union Township police have charged Martin with murder. Police said Martin fired two rounds from a .410-gauge shotgun at the teen. An autopsy will determine if more than one blast struck the victim.
Martin called 911 Sunday to report the shooting.
"I just killed a kid," he calmly told the 911 operator.
Martin said the victim, his parents and other youths had been harassing him for five years.
"I shot him with a (word deleted) .410 shotgun twice," Martin said. "He's laying in the yard."
Investigators plan to present the case to a grand jury Wednesday, Lt. Scott Gaviglia said.
Martin was arraigned Monday afternoon in Clermont County Municipal Court. Judge James A. Shriver ordered him held without bond pending a Thursday hearing.
Martin, handcuffed and dressed in an orange jail uniform, did not speak during the hearing. He remains in the Clermont County Jail.
Assistant Clermont County Prosecutor Mark Tekulve had requested that Martin be held without bond, calling the shooting "essentially a premeditated act" that was both "cruel" and "cowardly."
"We understand the young man was in the street when the shooting occurred," Tekulve said.
Assistant Public Defender Lauri Viney told the judge that Martin was a retired employee of the Ford Motor Co., where he had worked for 30 years, and that he had no criminal record.
Residents of Hawthorne Drive said Martin lived alone, and they would often see him walking in the neighborhood.
John Abegglen, assistant superintendent of the West Clermont School District, said the Clermont County Crisis Response Team spent the day at Glen Este High School, where Mugrage was a freshman in the School of American Studies.
Ten counselors were on hand to assist students and staff who expressed a need to talk about Mugrage's death. Three of the counselors were assigned to attend all of Mugrage's classes in case they were needed during conversations in the classroom. Abegglen expects the crisis team to be at school for a few more days.
"He was a very good student," Abegglen said of Mugrage. "He loved to play soccer. He was well-liked by his schoolmates."
In a letter sent home Monday with students, Glen Este Principal Dennis Ashworth outlined crisis resources available to the district's students and gave parents advice on how to help their children deal with the traumatic event.
"The West Clermont community experienced a great loss yesterday with the sudden death of one of our ninth-grade students, Larry Mugrage," Ashworth's letter said. "This news has saddened our community. Larry will be greatly missed."
Sunday, Holt's 13-year-old brother, who also lives in the neighborhood, was walking with Mugrage when Martin first confronted them about walking in his yard. The boys told Alicia Holt about the incident, she said.
Mugrage, who spent the four hours between the confrontation and shooting at her house, "was a good kid," Holt said. "He played soccer. He was good in school. All the kids - even the little ones (in the neighborhood) - loved him. He was best friends with my 14-year-old (step)son. They sat on the (school) bus together."
Mugrage's family declined to speak to reporters Monday.
Holt said she was aware of one other incident when Martin had complained about kids walking across his lawn.
He spoke to her husband, saying he would appreciate it if he'd keep the kids from running through his yard, she recalled.
Martin's lawn is void of ornamentation except for a pole flying American and U.S. Navy flags.
"This is a quiet street," Holt said. "Nothing ever happens here."
Wow... just WOW!
It's good that this guy will be taken from society.
At the same time... people shouldn't mess with freaks.. if the kid had already had problems with this guy in the past, he should have steered clear from him. Use some common sense! Don't mess with freaks!