NEWS AND COMMENT: This is a snapshot of modern life when stresses build up in what was probably a neighbour dispute over barking dogs. My guess is that the stresses built up to the point where this Georgia woman, Fonda Spratt, 56, lost her cool to such an extent that she was prepared to go to jail for life after allegedly trying to murder her neighbour.
It’s a pretty dire situation to find oneself in. The suggestion is that the dogs had been barking for a long time and that Ms Spratt had been complaining for a long time too, without success.
The report from FOX NEWS is that Ms Spratt marched into her neighbour’s home located in the 5200 block of Chattahoochee Street in Flowery Branch, Georgia, USA with a gun and confronted her neighbour before shooting her multiple times.
When the police arrived at 11:30 AM to a report of a shooting they found an adult female standing in the street with multiple gunshot wounds.
In fact, the woman had been struck twice. The police officers provided emergency treatment in the form of a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.
The woman was then rushed to hospital where it is reported she is in a stable condition. It appears that the wounds are not life-threatening.
Ms Spratt has been charged with attempted murder. If I was being cynical and cold-hearted, I would say that Ms Spratt has completely screwed up because she didn’t even kill the woman! And a conviction on attempted murder has the same jail sentence is that of murder. If you going to try and kill somebody you’ve got to be successful it seems to me.
Anyway, I am being cold-hearted, and I digress, but Ms Spratt has totally ruined her life over barking dogs. Perhaps in retrospect she might think that she would have been more sensible to have moved home. That’s not something you want to do for the reason stated but the outcome would have been far better for her.
Ms Spratt is currently in police custody on a bond set at $1300 according to the report. She is incarcerated in the Hall County Jail. It seems highly likely that she will remain incarcerated for a very long time.
In my lifetime of experience of living near neighbours as nearly all of us have to, I’d suggest that the best way to deal with a neighbour who is misbehaving and causing you great distress is to not say anything but simply move home quietly and without fuss. Just get out.
I know that sounds like defeatism, but it is the best solution. It is pragmatic and practical, and you get a result. The only issue remaining is that you’ve got to be lucky enough to live next door to a good neighbour after you’ve moved!
Looking at the story from another perspective: the woman with the dogs could have done a lot better. She could have trained dogs to keep quieter. Sometimes dogs bark and every movement outside the home as a warning signal to their ‘pack’ inside the home. This can be trained out with a bit of commitment. So, she obviously contributed to this catastrophic endgame.
