Couple murdered by neighbour over parking row

[dottypotter]

Can't help think of the poor couple who were stabbed to death by their neighbour over a parking space last year. Their children were in bed asleep.

The neighbour has been found guilty this week. He was never going to get away with it. He went home and phoned the police and told them what he had done. Very hard to understand how he couldn't have cared less about their children or his own children or going to prison.

Anyway got me thinking have you ever had really terrible arguments with neighbours that escalated. Have you ever put up and shut up because you were or are afraid of the neighbours and don't want any trouble.

Apparently parking spaces are really high on the list of neighbour arguments. I guess you never really expect to be killed but these days does it make you wary?

someone I know used to tell me how upset she was at the neighbour across the street parking in the parking bay on her side of the street. It’s not her space but she and the neighbours were at loggerheads about this. Seems I have totally underestimated the stress she was under as she sold up. Good thing I think after reading this thread

DH came home to find a man standing in our drive, letting his dog piss in our hedge. He asked the man if he could not let his dog do that in our garden and the man gave him a mouthful.
he then walked off, then a few minutes later reappeared without the dog and started shouting at DH. DH tried to calm the situation but the guy was furious. Another neighbour who DH had been talking to on the street had to step in and try to calm him down as well. It ended with the guy threatening to report DH to the council because we’re not allowed to park in our front garden?! We found out a few days later he lives a few doors down from us. So that’s great. Can’t wait to bump into him on the street.

This was a horrific story, I think of the children, it's devastating.

Still, we have greedy housing developers cramming tiny houses onto tiny streets on tight roads with no parking.

I think I remember this, a very big story at the time x

After very unpleasant run ins with a couple of neighbours I am very cautious with how I deal with them.

One of mine threatened to go to my workplace with a completely fabricated story about me that could have lost me my job. All over a fence and a branch from a tree. Still live at the same house but now grey rock the whole family and basically treat them as though they don’t exist. Neighbour is a raging narcissist (a proper one) and while unlikely to resort to violence is a much richer, more powerful person than I am who could make my life very difficult.

Omg this was horrific! Two of those children were not even living there, but just visiting their aunt. If ever a murderer deserved the death penalty, it's that woman! It was just evil beyond belief!

This lady was our neighbour for over 20 years. She was absolutely lovely and didn’t have a bad bone in her body. Ann never deserved what happened to her, and Norman and her son and 2 daughters never got over her death, and sadly her son died suddenly not long after Ann and Norman was heartbroken until he died a couple of years ago. They are a lovely family and the killer never got a long enough sentence!

You need to report this to SS.
I know it's scary, but you can do it. I'm only saying this because I've done it myself (a few times) and the bloke involved was very intimidating. I just thought "if he's scary to me imagine being a child who can't get away from him" - safeguarding is everyone's responsibility

After this thread you've got to be joking! The man is a thug. I don't know what's wrong with the woman, but she's no better. I'm very sorry, more than I can say, but I'm putting my own children first. It's a matter of a few more weeks until we're safely away then they won't know I reported them.

Not over a car space... we live rurally and some boundary fences with a small lot holder were in a bad way, neighbour said he couldn't afford his share to replace fences but we could graze his place in lieu.

So we would fertilise seasonally and spray his paddocks as we did our own, as well as replaced the fences. Neighbour said he was happy with the outcome and we didn't think much more about it. Neighbour's new partner said she was going to have goats at some point.

When the time came where we thought the grazing had compensated us for the replacement fence expense, DH spoke to neighbour without the wife present a couple of times about a formal lease and payment for it.

Neighbour was adament he didn't want to be paid, said he wanted control of when he might take the paddocks back..

Moving forward I got wind that it was being discussed by the wife to others that we were abusing the neighbours goodwill by not paying for grazing, and that we were not fertilising or spraying their paddocks. She posted the same on a social media small block owners page. I filed that away for a while.

When the time came for an adjoining paddock to be limed, I messaged the wife to say it might be a bit dusty for about half an hour at X time FYI. Received an abusive email back and I could tell it wasn't the wife's words, rather the Husband's who made the claim as per above. This was about 11pm at night.

I called him out on it for using his wife's profile and pretending to be her which he then carried on even though I had pointed out we had fertilised his 6 months prior and it was the next paddocks turn etc. Later the wife hopped on to say she had been the in the shower and had no idea this conversation was taking place...

Then DH caught neighbour a few times with his camera over on a hidden portion of our farm. Each time he would be asked what he was doing there with the last time neighbour abusing DH for where we were stocking baleage. DH told him to stay away and the following day we were asked to vacate our animals from their property which we did. The neighbour returned to our property several times more and was caught again, so I logged it on the police website as tresspass.

Police turned up and issued him with a warning, but at the same time, he told them we were using his property (we hadn't been there for about a month at this stage) and he wanted us warned too. Police returned, I explained the grazing set up and the conclusion of it the month prior. He also claimed that our local Council had told him to take down the fencing... ?

Police advised me to block them on social media and email faciities (he was sending more abusive emails including images of our property on google earth with the time line function rattling on about a missing fence). They sold and the new property owners showed us a wall in the shed that had dated pictures of us and our dogs taken from a camera in the grass. It went back to a time when the wife asked if I would feed her chickens while they were away!

So not sure what was going through their minds and they supposedly are long gone further south. He told neighbours before he left that I called the police to dob them in for growing cannabis, its also what he told his wife too as she wasn't present when the police arrived.

I totally understand how things quickly escalate, some people are just nuts.

Hope the murderer dies an agonising death

That describes all the Victorian terraced houses in my town, narrow streets, cars and vans parked on both sides, often bumped up on the pavement as well. Imagine how much worse things are going to get once everyone needs to charge their cars, I dread to think.

Growing up we lived on a new council estate. Most got on well, watched each other’s dc, all of us kids were all within an age range of about 5-10. One family were quite rough, we had seen the mother assault a pregnant woman because she perceived her to have jumped the queue at the ice cream van. Father had no less than 3 scrap cars in the garden at any one time.

We were all outside playing and the son appeared with an air pistol and shot me, only in the bum but it resulted in surgery to get the pellet out. Obviously the police were involved, at a time where we had a community policeman. He went and gave the boy a telling off, and warned them. Our lives at that point became hell. We had burning paper put through the letterbox late at night, brake fluid poured over my DM’s car one night and then white gloss paint the next night. Daily emergency services being sent to our home to the point, we had to establish a password in case of a real emergency.

We stuck it out, but it was a really scary time.

When we moved to anew house, discovered the neighbours like to play really loud music. A member of my family went round and politely asked them to turn it down a few notches and from that point, they declared war on us. Rubbish was tipped over the dividing wall, the car was keyed, abuse was yelled in the street, their front door was slammed day in/day out. Guess they didn't like being told 'what to do'.

We took an unusual step and one Christmas, knocked on the door and gave them a box of chocolates and a card. They were completely dumbfounded as I guess they were expecting us to keep on escalating. That one action caused everything to turn around and from that point everything started to get better. We lived there for another 10 years and at the end, we were all on very friendly terms.

They don't come when someone is trying to break your door down to 'fucking twat' you.

Even when you explain you are disabled and scared.

I just got, "what did you do to antagonise them"

I'd visited her mother in hospital, and yes I know that doesn't make sense, that's why I'm scared, who reacts that way?

There are at least 2 Mumsnet parking threads that ended up getting violent and the police called. The one with Army Dad and another Pink Cock or something like that. Things can escalate quickly.

The couple who were killed were parking both their cars in the one parking space nose to tail, so I can understand why it was irritating, but irritating doesn't mean escalating to murder.

But, I do think people are becoming less tolerant and more aggressive these days. It's very worrying. I'm glad the guy was found guilty. I hope he gets a decent sentence.

The CCTV showed him jumping over the fence and returning within less than a minute, so I doubt that would have given him time to pick the lock and kill them.

You do see a cat running away on the CCTV.

I think it's perfectly normal for people to have their patio doors unlocked during the evening though.

I was told by police to just give him my parking spot and to park on the main road so as to not 'antagonise' him.

And we wonder why there's a problem...

It has been reported by BBC etc that the door was unlocked.

When you have crap neighbors and the police don't do anything,it's very demoralising.
We've had trouble from out neighbors for years.
Even went to court,but it's this type of abuse the police need to take seriously.
As it can and does get more serious.

It's a horrible way to live

We don't know whether it was locked or not it's not been reported

We do know and it wasn't.

On day three of the trial was there was a detailed timeline of the events from 5pm when Reeves returned from the Christmas lights switch on including CCTV (both houses had external cameras because of the parking situation) which picked up some of the audio from inside the Reeves house and more audio from inside the Chapple house.

And then all of the evidence including texts as well as witness testimony from the neighbours and Reeves parents. Which gave a really accurate timeline.

Reeves wife gave inaccurate information about the times and at what point she phoned his parents but that was all uncovered by the police as there was so much technical evidence on the timeline from phones and the cameras.

The fact that all of the houses were close together meant that some neighbours heard Mrs Chapple scream as well as this being picked up on the CCTV audio from her house.

Reeves wife gave inaccurate information about the times and at what point she phoned his parents but that was all uncovered by the police as there was so much technical evidence on the timeline from phones and the cameras.

Any idea why she did this? Was it just a mistake?

I think she just panicked on the day and later wanted to cover the fact she phoned his parents before the police. I don't think it was a master plan.

She said that she noticed the dagger was gone from the frame and so then phoned his parents. Then Reeves came back home and he phoned the police.

But what actually happened was that he came home, covered in blood, then she phoned his parents then he phoned the police on the same phone, so not at the same time.

Then the parents arrived before anyone else and Reeves and his Dad went back into the Chapple's house where by this time there were neighbours and Reeves' dad threw everyone out of the Chapple's house which is how he ended up getting arrested as well as Reeves.

The neighbours before the current thugs y see d to have such loud music, and parties going on until all hours, that we had to involve the out of hours noise pollution team (I think it was called).

Every time we complained they'd climb over our fence and break something- glass tables etc. On one occasion they poured (threw) flavoured cider (smell and colour of strawberry) over our back windows, including the children's. They c would also empty rubbish in the garden.

The landlords (who inherited the place after the death of their father) did nothing about them when I complained, but I discovered it's because they were related to them.

The house is completely unmodernised and so is dirt cheap (approx 600 a month) and it's attracted some awful people. The best people (nice and considerate to us anyway ) one of them had police and ambulance round the first week because one of the couple (the woman) throttled the other. We heard it! There was no more trouble after that and they obviously reconciled.

It's terrible what happened to the couple. I wonder if he now feels remorse. To have destroyed their Iives, and to lose his own freedom for life.

But why did their sharing the one parking space annoy him? I don't understand.

We moved to a lovely house in June 2016, was perfect. Then the retirement age neighbour opposite the road started his vendetta within 24 hours:

• notes though the door telling us to weed the driveway/cut the grass - it was a slither of grass and a brick driveway so hardly any weeds.
• he didn’t like the lights on in the front room (ever) - so much I bought black out curtains!
• he didn’t like the fact he had ‘look at our cars on our drive as they were awful’ (just regular cars)
• he took in parcels in then denied having them
• threatened my partner (or rather said that his son would come and beat him up)
• he would march over and bang on the door about ‘dragging the street down’ how he had lived there 40 years as we were not going to change that (we had been there about 2 months 🙄)
• Asked us constantly to donate to random crap going on at his church/social club
• shouted at us to ‘keep moving’ when we dared to look in his direction when getting in the car.
• we caught him peering Over our 6ft back wall / gate.
• told me to stop taking photos of the house (taking a pic of DD near the flowers in the garden one day)
• tried to report me to the council for having a dog - IN MY OWN HOUSE. She was the best old girl never made any noise or fuss.
• followed me when I was walking her around the estate.
• And finally in March 2017 (although we could never prove it) we fully believe he poisoned our lovely dog - she became very sick very suddenly took her to the vets she died 3 days later - post mortum found cancer but even the vet said that the onset was so quick it was unlikely to have killed her like this (she vomited herself to death 😥)
• we moved out in April 2017 - 10 months later.

We now live very rural with one neighbour who is absolutely amazing. But it was a horrendous time !

My sympathy to anyone experiencing this!