Killing suspect jailed over ducks
| Updated: 1/20/2009 8:51 am |
Published: 1/19/2009 5:48 pm |
He faces manslaughter charges for shooting and killing a man on his property but that isn't why Larry Staley landed in jail last week. It’s because of the amount of ducks landing in his pond. All this is going on as Staley prepares to go to trial Tuesday for the shooting death of 18-year old Bryant Cross. He won't talk about that case, but is speaking out about the latest incident that landed him in jail.A tranquil pond is not the scene where one would expect a controversy. Larry Staley says he's been in court half a dozen times because of ducks in the pond behind his Sherwood home. A neighbor complained about the amount of water fowl last summer."Most of the ducks out there are just wild ducks that come and go,” Staley says. “My girls own two little white ducks."But in his last duck court appearance in Sherwood on January 14, the judge found him in contempt for not following a court order that, in part, asked him to stop hand feeding ducks and reduce the amount of ducks on his property to six."All of the sudden I'm going to jail for 60 days," Staley says.When asked if he felt the the judgement had been perhaps unfairly slanted considering what else he is facing Staley replied, "Oh very much, because the judge never got the information he needed to make a fair judgement on this.”What else he's facing includes a manslaughter charge for the shooting death of 18-year old Bryant Cross on his property in October 2007. His trial on that charge is supposed to start this week."I want to be left alone. My family has had enough,” Staley says. “We don't go out looking for trouble. We don't even go out to dinner in Sherwood, we stay in our home."Staley is understandably worried about the manslaughter case but says the duck incident shows he's being singled out."Every time it's the trouble that comes and invades our property,” Staley says. “We're tired of it. I will be so glad when the day comes that we can sell the house and get out of here. We want as far from Sherwood as we can possibly get."For now, Staley will fight all the charges.One of his neighbors FOX16 News spoke didn't want to be on camera but says the judge in the case went way overboard by ordering Staley to jail for 60 days over the amount of ducks on his property. That neighbor feels city animal control employees are biased towards him because of the manslaughter charge he faces.No one from the city of Sherwood returned calls placed Monday.
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