Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 28, 1994 TAG: 9407280091
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
To friends of Allen and his wife, Darlene, Paul Abbott is a Svengali-like figure who rallied half the neighborhood against Aubrey Allen.
Allen's friends say he was opinionated and outspoken but tried to stay away from trouble. Abbott's friends say Abbott is the kind of man who would always lend a hand to friends in need.
Randy Krantz, an assistant commonwealth's attorney in Bedford County, had handled the feud between the two Chamblissburg men since joining the office in 1992.
"I would get calls almost daily, mostly from Mr. Abbott saying that Mr. Allen was making threatening gestures or intimidating him," Krantz recalled. "Everybody was making so many counter accusations, it was very difficult for us to find out who was at fault."
Abbott shot and killed Allen on June 5. Abbott contends he shot in self-defense; Allen's widow and friends say it was murder.
No charges have been filed.
Aubrey Allen was a Vietnam veteran who worked as a handyman/electrician. He was convicted in 1976 of attempted murder in Salem for firing a gun into the car of his ex-wife. In 1983, he was charged in Vinton with attempting to rape a prostitute. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of assault and was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
Allen was diagnosed HIV-positive in 1991. During court testimony for one of the charges brought against him by neighbors, Allen said he had been receiving treatment for depression.
Abbott made national headlines in 1988 for making public disclosures about Norfolk Southern's railroad safety practices. A veteran track inspector, Abbott made secret tapes of a supervisor allegedly telling Abbott to ignore safety violations.
An investigation followed, and the Federal Railroad Administration cited the railroad for track safety violations.
Soon after the furor died, Abbott was terminated for what union officials call a trumped-up charge. The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees went into arbitration with NS, and Abbott was reinstated to a lesser position. He retired soon after on a medical disability.
Tom McCoy, vice chairman of the Norfolk and Western System Federation, another union, said Abbott's fight with the railroad took a toll on him.
"I could personally see he was under a lot of stress," McCoy said, adding that he did not know details about Abbott's medical condition, but that he knew stress made it worse.
Krantz said the feud began over a dispute about road maintenance in the Chamblissburg subdivision of Scenic Acres, which has private roads.
Darlene Allen said the feud began when Abbott made a pass at her and was refused.
Many of the families in the neighborhood have been divided by the four-year feud between Abbott and Allen.
"Several people have come up to Paul [Abbott] and said, `You've done us a good deed,''' said Debbie Bobbitt, the Allens' next-door neighbor.
"I hate to see a man go like this, but it's been quieter. He should've left everybody alone."
Linda Sanders, whose house is directly behind the Allens', said, "Since [Aubrey Allen] has been shot, [Scenic Acres] has been the most peaceful place to live. Before, I was scared to even go into my yard, because you never knew what [Allen] was going to do.
"My little boy never went out in the yard to play. At night, he would ask me, `What if Aubrey shoots us? What if he sets our house on fire?'''
Pete Cheney, president of the Scenic Acres Landowners Association, said Allen once called him and said, "I could go through this place and start killing families, and I could pretty much finish before anybody gets here."
Cheney said if Allen had killed Abbott, "I think he'd just have moved along to another house."
Levi Browning, a friend of Aubrey Allen's, said he heard Paul Abbott say, "I'm going to kill Aubrey Allen. I'm going to kill that son of a bDarlene Allen said she saw the Abbotts at a flea market a couple of weeks after her husband's death, and they just looked at her and laughed.
Linda Sanders said she was frightened of the Allens because Darlene Allen keeps targets of human silhouettes in her back yard for target practice. Sanders also said the Allens would curse her and and her husband, Joey.
She said the Allens accused her family of shooting the Allens' dog and shooting out a window in the Allens' shed.
Darlene Allen still contends the Sanderses did those things and also says the Sanderses reported the Allens to the child welfare department for child abuse. She said the department found the abuse charges groundless.
The Sanders/Allen feud climaxed in 1992 at the neighborhood bus stop, where Aubrey Allen confronted the Sanderses' daughter Angel because her boyfriend had been driving too fast in front of the Allens' house.
Angel said Allen spit in her face and threatened to kill her family. The Allens said he made no threat. Darlene Allen says that Angel called her husband a child molester and a "fag" with AIDS and pushed him.
The matter was tried in juvenile court, where a charge of assault filed against Angel Sanders was dismissed. No charges were brought against Aubrey Allen.
Allen was convicted in 1993 of assault with a deadly weapon or an object of similar appearance for pointing his finger at Joey Sanders as if it were a gun. He received 90 days in jail. While jailed, he held a TV news conference and accused his neighbors and the Bedford County Sheriff's Office of AIDS bias.
Neighbors, including the Sanderses and the Bobbitts, say it made no difference to them that Aubrey Allen was HIV-positive.
Allen appealed the conviction in Bedford County Circuit Court. The charge was reduced to simple assault and placed under advisement for one year. During that year, Allen and his neighbors were required to follow a court order.
The court order stemmed from two years of back-and-forth litigation from Abbott and Allen. From 1992 to 1994, Aubrey Allen obtained arrest warrants for Paul Abbott for brandishing a firearm to induce fear, attempting to intimidate a witness and using language to incite a breach of the peace. Allen also obtained an arrest warrant charging Joey Sanders with using language to incite violence.
Paul Abbott obtained arrest warrants for Aubrey Allen for blocking the path of his vehicle and attempting to intimidate a witness.
All the charges were dismissed.
The court order stipulated that Allen could have no contact with the Abbotts, the Sanderses, the Bobbitts and other families and that those families could have no contact with him. It also ordered Allen not to videotape any neighbors off his own property or erect any speed bumps in the road - both of which were complaints neighbors made about Allen.
by CNB