Bowling Green, Virginia

From Richmond’s NBC12.com of September 16, 2005

Defendant acquitted in slaying of his neighbor

A Caroline County jury has acquitted a lawyer-cattleman charged with first degree murder in the shooting death of his neighbor. After fire hours of deliberations, the jury issued its verdict and John Ames walked away a free man Friday afternoon.

Ames, 60, was charged with fatally shooting his neighbor Perry Brooks, 74, in April 2004 after Brooks tried to retrieve a wandering bull on Ames’ property. The incident ended a 15-year-feud that began over a fence that Ames built between their properties.

The jury began deliberations at 9 AM Friday morning and it lasted for five hours. They asked the judge for transcripts of two witnesses. Later, they asked the judge to define “reasonable provocation.” He told them they had to determine what it means.

Reasonable provocation was central to the defense of the accused. Ames argued he was trying to defend himself from Brooks. Prosecutors say Ames waited for the 74-year-old man and shot him several times with a handgun.

In the end, jury sided with the defense and John Ames left the Caroline County courtroom a free man, not guilty in the eyes of the court.

Earlier, from the Richmond Times Dispatch of September 16, 2005

Ames: 'I think I saved my own life'

A jury this morning will begin deliberating the fate of John F. Ames, who testified yesterday that he had "no conscious thoughts" as he fired rapidly at his lunging, stick-wielding neighbor.

"He was coming at me with the stick up in the air. I started backing away," Ames, a 60-year-old attorney and cattleman, told jurors on the fourth day of his murder trial in Caroline County Circuit Court.

"He took a swing at me with the stick . . . I ducked, and as I ducked, I cocked the 9 mm [pistol] and I fired and kept firing."

"Everything happened so fast, there were no conscious thoughts," he said. "It was totally reaction."