A 60-year-old O'Fallon woman is accused of shooting at her neighbor while he was working on a fence, amid a property feud between them.
The shooting occurred in O'Fallon as the woman's neighbor worked on a fence, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
The neighbor said that while he was grinding, he heard loud voices and possible yelling, then a voice counting down from three, followed by a gunshot, the Post-Dispatch reports. He ran into his home and told his wife to call police. He was not injured.
The Property Feud
The incident was part of a property feud between the neighbors.
When the man did not move, she said she raised the handgun and pointed it toward him as he knelt on the ground, later telling police the gun went off accidentally. But prosecutors said the evidence indicates she fired directly at her neighbor, the newspaper's report notes. The woman initially told police she had been alone in the backyard when questioned.
After the shot was fired, her husband reached for the gun and went back inside the house, where officers later found the weapon in the living room. As of Tuesday afternoon, the husband had not been charged.
Fence Lines, Stand-Your-Ground, and the Law Fueling These Disputes
Missouri law allows adjoining landowners to cross a fence to repair it, according to MU Extension.
Missouri's self-defense law addresses imminent threats and generally does not permit deadly force solely to protect property, per legal analysis from a St. Louis criminal defense firm. For a first offense, armed criminal action carries a sentence of 3 to 15 years in prison, according to Vindex Law, PC.
Why County Police, Not O'Fallon Officers, Responded
The St. Charles County Police Department serves areas outside city police jurisdictions across 587 square miles and more than 400,000 residents, according to the St. Charles County government.
The incident stands out against O'Fallon's reputation as one of the safer suburbs in Missouri. SafeWise's 2026 State of Safety report named O'Fallon among the state's top 10 safest cities. It is also a community with a median household income above $104,000, according to housing data compiled by Kurby AI.
A separate recent weapons confrontation in O'Fallon involved an 85-year-old man. Hoodline previously reported an 85-year-old man pointing a loaded gun at an officer inside O'Fallon City Hall in August. Whether the woman had filed any formal harassment complaints against her neighbor with county police before Sunday's shooting remains unclear.
