Over a laundry room dispute, Hugh Hootman, a Stuart, Florida man, loses his temper and admitted to shooting and killing two elderly neighbors Henry and Ginger Wallace.
Hootman said, “I wish I could take it back.”
Admitting that he shot his downstairs neighbors, the 75-years-old Hootman told police in Stuart, Florida that he demanded an apology for his wife, telling Henry Wallace his 81-year-old neighbor, to apologize for yelling and cursing at his wife for leaving the door of their shared laundry room open, days earlier before shooting and killing him.
Wallace on the other hand refused to apologize and pushed past him, prompting him to pull out his gun and shoot Wallace several times. However, 81-year-old Ginger Wallace, Wallace’s wife, rushed outside to investigate the commotion, at which point, according to Hootman, he shot twice and killed her. “I lost my temper. So sorry. I wish I could take it back,” Hootman allegedly told police.
Hootman went upstairs and told his wife to call the cops, after shooting the elderly couple.
After then, Hootman’s wife called the cops, on the 911 call, she said to the police:
“My husband just shot two people and I believe he killed them. The neighbor downstairs just the other day shouted at me and swore at me regarding the washer and dryer.”
She told the dispatcher, “He’s in shock, too,” adding that her husband had subsequently disassembled his gun and left it outside and was now waiting for the police while sitting in his recliner.
At the time of the incident, Kathy Barger said that she heard Ginger Wallace emerge from the couple’s apartment after her husband had been shot while she was outside hanging a Christmas wreath.
“I heard her yell, ‘Oh, no, no, and then she screamed, and then she was silent. That’ll stay with me all my days,” Barger said.
Hootman was carrying a gun for protection and had a concealed carry permit, according to detectives with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office. At their 55+ condominium building, Cedar Pointe, in Stuart, Florida, which is about 100 miles north of Miami, Hootman allegedly shot and killed the Wallaces.
In a statement on the sheriff’s office’s Facebook page, Hootman is still in custody and is being held without bond on two counts of murder.
Watch the video below for more details:
Sources: Scallywagandvagabond, WPBF-TV, WECT
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