She may be 92 but she knows how to shoot and her aim is only slightly off the mark: an elderly, Florida, woman takes aim and fires at her neighbor – an ex cop – after he refused to kiss her. Bullets missed the man by just inches.
Bullet holes riddle the inside panels and glass of the former police officer’s rented mobile home. "If my head would have been over just a little bit further, (a bullet) probably would have hit me in the back of the head," Dwight Bettner told reporters.
According to one neighbor, Staudinger had been under the impression that Bettner – nearly forty years younger – was her boyfriend, or in a relationship with her.
Bettner says his elderly neighbor has seemed attracted to him since his move-in to the neighborhood, roughly six months ago. "I've taken her trash out for her, just neighborly stuff," Bettner told news outlets. "I guess she just took that as something else."
Apparently didn’t take Staudinger at her word. The former cop told Sheriff's deputies that Staudinger threatened to shoot him recently – after informing her that he had a girlfriend.
This go-around, Staudinger had refused to leave, reportedly telling Bettner: "I want a kiss before I leave." Bettner says he told the woman “no,” and that she needed to go back to her property. Sheriffs say there were some expletives involved with the request or order.
Whatever occurred, Bettner was standing by a window and on the telephone with family when Staudinger began firing. Bettner heard gunshots, with one bullet traveling through a window, spraying glass. That was the least of Bettner’s worries though: Staudinger didn’t fire just once – she shot of a number of rounds, one of which came just a few horizontal inches from Bettner. That shot was a near miss, at head-level.
After missing Bettner himself, the elderly women hit him where it hurts -- Staudinger told deputies she’d fired at Bettner's new Mitsubishi 3000GT, a car "that he loved so much.” The car too is riddled with bullet holes.
Staudinger remains in jail – with bond for the 92-year-old is set at $50,000 -- after being arrested on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and shooting into a dwelling.