GREEN: A woman who found her family’s name inscribed on a tombstone in the neighbor’s front yard has asked the police to investigate what she considers more than a Halloween prank.
Lisa O’Brien of Green said her estranged neighbor, an officer in the Uniontown police department, had displayed the tombstone following years of disputes, verbal altercations, menacing and disagreements over property lines and branches that hung over them.
The feud began 11 years ago after O’Brien said her neighbor had a company install an electric dog fence around his backyard. The underground sensor was placed inside the fence on every side but the side bordering her yard.
“He stood and laughed at my husband and said he owned that property and didn’t care where the property line began,” O’Brien said, chronicling the years that followed.
The neighbor, Dustin Hughes, told a Beacon Journal reporter “there are no issues” in a brief conversation Friday afternoon at his front door.
The tombstone, which a neighbor told the O’Briens about Monday morning, is just the latest example in a decade of unease on Mayfair Road.
O’Brien said she called Uniontown Police Chief Harold Brit on Monday. Brit had left for the day on Friday when the Beacon Journal tried to reach him.
O’Brien said Brit encouraged his officer to take down the tombstone, which has now been replaced by another that reads: “See, I told you I was sick.”
Brit reportedly told O’Brien that Hughes could not be told to take the tombstone down due to free speech. Plus, the chief reportedly added, Hughes could have been referring to another family of O’Briens.
Not convinced that local authorities understood the gravity of the situation, O’Brien said she filed a police report Tuesday with the Summit County Sheriff’s Office. The records room has not responded to a Beacon Journal request for that police report, which O’Brien said was filed under aggravated menacing.
As of Friday afternoon, the mother of two said police had not updated her on the investigation, which began Tuesday when deputy sheriffs were seen speaking with Hughes.
“I feel safer that it’s out where people are watching, where there are other sets of eyes — especially the sheriff’s department,” said O’Brien, who is no less concerned for the safety of her family.
“Still, with his behavior, we’re just not sure what he’s capable of,” she said of Hughes, who she noted carries a police-issued firearm. “Being that this is the first time we’ve had to go this far to get him to stop, we don’t know.”
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug .