Keep Off the Grass

[Torn Rose]

http://www.local6.com/news/8157594/detail.html

"BATAVIA, Ohio -- Irritated but calm, Charles Martin called 911 and told the dispatcher that he had finally done something about the neighbor boy -- the one, Martin said into the phone, who had been harassing him for years.

"I just killed a kid," Martin said, according to a recording of the Sunday afternoon call released by police in Union Township, near this city about 20 miles east of Cincinnati.

Martin, 66, is charged with murdering 15-year-old Larry Mugrage, who lived next door to the house where Martin kept a meticulous front lawn with grass that he could sometimes be seen measuring to the inch.

Police said crossing that lawn is what got Mugrage killed. Martin, who lived alone, told officers he'd had several disputes with neighbors about walking on his grass, but hadn't called police since 2003, Union Township police Lt. Scott Gaviglia said.

In the 911 call, Martin, a retired Ford Motor Co. worker with no criminal record, told the dispatcher that Mugrage had been "making the other kids harass me and my place, tearing things up."

"I shot him with a (word deleted) .410 shotgun twice," Martin told the dispatcher.

"You shot him with a shotgun? Where is he?" the dispatcher asked.

"He's laying in the yard," Martin said.

Mugrage, who police said was hit in the chest, was pronounced dead at a hospital. "