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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Spooky

This is a compelling story, if you have a few minutes to read the whole thing. It pits a possibly mentally ill man and his reclusive mother against teenagers out for a relatively tame (especially in this day and age) night of fun, and things go horribly wrong:

It has come to be known as the Spooky House Incident: A group of teenagers in this quaint older suburb who tried to scare themselves on a "ghost hunt" and a recluse who responded with gunfire, leaving two lives wrecked.

A pretty blonde high school cheerleader, Rachel Barezinsky, is crippled for life. Allen S. Davis, roused from an eccentric but otherwise unoffending existence, was sentenced last month to 19 years in prison for what he describes as defending his home.

A year after the shots were fired, the bizarre case has left residents around Columbus torn. While plenty of people felt Davis got what he deserved for overreacting to teenager antics, many others saw the girls as picking on Davis and facing no legal consequences for trespassing.

"I felt kind of sorry for both sides," resident Jane Leppert said as she sat outside a coffee shop near the village's brick-paved square. "Although I feel very sorry for the girl who was shot, she unfortunately messed around with a kind of paranoid individual who felt the need to protect himself, even against kids."

I read through the story several times until I finally came down slightly on the side of the homeowner. He was guilty under the law, but the sentence seems overly harsh. The case hinged on the fact that the girls were not technically trespassing because they weren't far enough onto the property and there were no clearly visible signs. But they were seeking thrills at the place because it had a reputation of being "spooky." There's usually a reason for that.

But we value life over property, so perhaps I'm wrong. What do you think?

Comments

aleighcat
Sat, 08/25/2007 - 4:15pm

O.k., "Brad"........First off, I don't do/never did drugs, and I have a very healthy sex life, not that it's any of your business. You sound extremely immature. By what do you determine that I'm as messed up as "this guy"? Because I dared to defend myself & son in the middle of the night on a dark country road, from a guy 3 times my size who was there with bad intentions? Because I prefer my privacy to being around people? Please tell me how you've come to this all-knowing conclusion. My son is in the military right now (he's 25), but he grew up being "Mr. Social" and was extremely popular, so I don't get it when you say this will probably be "his life"...(???) Please enlighten me. Bottom line, the girls had no business being there, just like he should've handled the situation differently. It sounds as if maybe you should put the doobie down and grow up a bit.

aleighcat
Sat, 08/25/2007 - 4:28pm

As far as my childhood went....I couldn't have asked for a better one. My parents are still married after 57 years together. All of us are bullied at one time or another in school, I personally was picked on because I was small, but I also gave as good as I got. I wasn't a sh*t starter, but I wasn't a sh*t taker, either. That has nothing to do with me not wanting to be around people. I am just quiet by nature, I like to read and just do my own thing. People tend to bore me after awhile. I was raised to respect my elders and to respect others' property and privacy. I raised my son the same way, so neither of us would have let ourselves be put into the position that this girl was, in the first place. It's a little thing called respect. I know a lot of you "younger generation" reading this are unfamiliar with it, just like the (I'm sure) younger man suggested I do some drugs and "get laid". Real respectful. I am 42 years old, and while I side more with the guy in this story, I still have a little compassion for this girl. It was dark, she was trespassing, and he made a bad choice the same as she. He was where he was supposed to be, she wasn't. Both are guilty of making bad choices and handling things wrong. !9 years is too harsh for this man, IMO. Should he be penalized? Absolutely....just not to this extent.

aleighcat
Sat, 08/25/2007 - 4:40pm

*****BTW....these were not "little girls".....the one who was shot was 17 at the time. She is now 18....considered an adult by some standards. She should've shown some common sense and should have known better than to go traipsing around in the middle of the night on someone else's darkened property. Yes, I know that she was in the car when she got shot, AFTER coming back to "investigate" the noise (duh..), AFTER she had been on his property. Just "not far enough" according to the police. If she was on land that would have shown up on his deed (surveyed), then she was trespassing. "A little bit" on his land is the same as "a little bit" shot. It is what it is. It would never have happened if she wasn't doing something and being somewhere she shouldn't in the first place. Period.

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