In a quiet neighborhood in Spotsylvania County, just outside of Fredericksburg, Virginia, a long-simmering dispute between two neighbors erupted into a fatal confrontation on May 21, 2017. Guy Prudhomme, a 65-year-old White/Caucasian male, was shot and killed in the driveway of his home. The incident, which shocked the local community, was the culmination of years of disagreement over a property line.
On that Sunday afternoon, Prudhomme had a landscaping crew working on his property.
His 80-year-old neighbor, Larry Keith Johnston, reportedly became angered, believing the crew was working on his land. A verbal argument between the two men escalated, tragically ending when Johnston shot Prudhomme once in the chest. Prudhomme, the president and CEO of a Washington D.C. development company, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Following the shooting, Johnston returned to his own home. Deputies from the Spotsylvania County Sheriff's Office later found him there and took him into custody without incident. Landscape workers who witnessed the shooting identified Johnston as the perpetrator. He was subsequently arrested and charged with first-degree murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Johnston was held without bond at a local jail. The tragic event highlighted the devastating consequences of an unresolved neighborhood dispute that had reportedly been escalating for several years, although police had never been called to intervene previously.
