BARROW COUNTY, GA (WSB/CNN) – A Georgia woman says a neighbor harassed her and her husband for months before allegedly killing her husband and their dog because of a dispute about dog feces.
Beth Wilson says she has felt lost ever since she watched her husband die and learned the couple’s neighbor is the suspected killer.
"He's just taken everything from me. He’s taken my husband, my best friend, my future, our children that we could have had,” Wilson said. "I don't know how I will ever recover from this."
Police say Larry Bates murdered 44-year-old Paul Wilson early Sunday morning.
The victim's wife says Bates lived across the street from the family for two years, and lately, he had become obsessed with them.
"He started harassing us about two months ago. He thought our dogs were using the bathroom in his yard, and they weren't,” Wilson said.
But Wilson says they had shaken hands and agreed to move on from the issue.
"Bygones were supposed to be bygones. Nothing had happened for two weeks,” she said.
When her husband came home from work Sunday, Wilson says he left to walk the dogs. Soon after that, she heard gunshots. She says Bates followed her husband and opened fire on him, killing the victim and one of the family dogs.
"And I went to try to get his pulse, and I put my hand on his back and I felt him take his last breath,” Wilson said.
Still haunted by that night, Wilson says everything reminds her of the man taken from her.
"I don't even know if I can live here anymore with those memories,” she said.
Bates remains in jail on murder and cruelty to animal charges.
Copyright 2017 WSB, Barrow County Detention Center, Wilson Family via CNN. All rights reserved.
