Man Killed After Dog Urinated on Neighbor's Lawn
May. 13, 2010— -- A south suburban Chicago man known for being very proud of his lawn has been charged with killing a neighbor who let his dog urinate on the man's front yard.
University Park, Illinois, resident, Charles Clements, 69, a former Marine, is being held on a $3 million bond in connection with the fatal shooting last Sunday of 23-year-old Joshua Funches.
The victim's mother is shocked that her son was gunned down on Mother's Day in what she believes was a minor neighborly dispute.
"My heart is so heavy and it's so torn and it's whipped up," Patricia Funches told ABC News.
"I should not have to bury my son."
Patricia Funches said Clements followed her son home, pulled out his gun, and shot him. "Why did that man leave out of his house with a gun and come after my son," his mother wondered aloud. "I always taught my son to walk away."
Police say Joshua Funches' fox terrier urinated on Clements' lawn, and the incident escalated after the two men exchanged words after Funches headed toward his home. When police arrived at the scene and found Funches bleeding on the ground in front of a vacant house, witnesses directed them to Clements' house. Officers recovered a .45-caliber handgun they believe Clement used to kill Funches.
Funches' mother, who did not witness the shooting, disputes that her son would have incited Clements.
"He didn't bother nobody. There would have never been a complication," she said. The only way there could have been an altercation is for Clements to have struck Joshua first, she said. If that had happened, she said, her son perhaps would have fought back.
Funches suffered a single gunshot wound in the abdomen, and his death was ruled a homicide by the Cook County, Illinois, Medical Examiner's Office. He was pronounced dead Sunday night at a hospital in Olympia Field.
His mother rode in the ambulance with him to the hospital. "When I saw him in the ambulance, I told him to call on Jesus. He did. He last two words were 'Jesus. Jesus.'"
