MEDIA, Pa., Oct. 11 (UPI) -- A 72-year-old Philadelphia-area man has been charged with ambushing a neighbor, killing him and wounding his stepdaughter, authorities say.
James Dellavecchia was arrested Monday morning at his home in Ridley in suburban Delaware County, the Philadelphia Daily News reported. Dellavecchia was later hospitalized after banging his head on the bars of a police holding cell.
Investigators say Dellavecchia was waiting for Scott Robins, 42, when he emerged from his house just after 6 a.m. to go to work. Dellavecchia allegedly shot Kristen Snow, 23, in the abdomen when she emerged to see what had happened.
An apprentice, Rick Wallace, who was waiting for Robins in his truck, told the Delaware County Times he believes Dellavecchia fired at him as well.
Dellavecchia had filed four or five recent noise complaints against Robins, who was building a shed on his property. But a neighbor, John Hoffman, 54, said the feud went back decades, that Dellavecchia accused Robins as a boy of stealing his son's bicycle and that the Robins family said Dellavecchia tried to poison their dog and burn their boat.
"With the shed construction, it just seemed to make his blood boil," Hoffman told the News. "But never in a million years would you think it'd end like this."
Wallace told the Times Robins said he was so worried about threats from Dellavecchia he was thinking about a police complaint.
