An 11-year-old girl was shot dead and her parents were seriously injured in France Saturday by a neighbor who has been embroiled in a years-long gardening dispute with the family, police said.
Solaine Thornton, 11, was allegedly ambushed by Dirk Raats, 70, during a barbecue in the family’s disputed garden, according to UK’s The Times.
Her father Adrian, 52, was left in a coma and her mother Rachel, 49, was shot in the back and head during the rampage, the report said.
Solaine’s 8-year-old sister Celeste managed to escape and get help.
The murder and attempted murder suspect told officials he had not meant to shoot Solaine during the attack, which came after Raats had engaged in a four-year campaign to stop the family from clearing the overgrown garden that they inherited when they bought the property.
“It’s so horrible what happened. I don’t understand it,” he reportedly said during a Monday court appearance.
Prosecutors said that Raats “clearly targeted” Adrian and Rachel, shooting them from less than 30 feet away.
“It would seem that he was not aiming at the little girl,” who was sitting on a swing when she was shot dead, prosecutor Camille Miansoni said.
The incident happened in Saint-Herbot across the English Channel from the UK in western France, and neither the Thornton family nor Raats is French; the suspect is a retired Dutch national and the victims are British, according to the paper.
Rachel had told friends that Raat had drawn a gun on the couple several years ago in connection with the family’s garden work. Aiden had reportedly been working on the hedge between the two properties in the hours before the rampage.
Raats and his wife were upset that the Brits’ gardening had left them “opened up to scrutiny from outside,” prosecutors said, the outlet reported.
The dispute began when the family cut down a large oak tree whose branches hung over the Raats’ property. The couple tried to sue the Thorntons for damages but lost the case.
In 2019, Raats tried to mediate the issue at a town hall, but the family did not participate.
“I can’t stop someone from cleaning his garden, from trimming the hedge,” Marguerite Bleuzen, the mayor of Plonévez-du-Faou reportedly said.
“I think he [Raats] wanted to live in his little cocoon and that having people next to him, he didn’t like it. We knew the family well. There is a village fête every year and they always came.”
Raats and his wife were found to be under the influence of drugs after the shooting, which was carried out with an illegal 22-caliber rifle, authorities reportedly said.
A large amount of cannabis and another illicit gun were found at the house.
After her family was gunned down, Celeste reportedly raced to the house of Pierre Leroy and his wife Frederique, both 66.
“She ran up here screaming ‘They have killed my sister,’” Leroy told the paper.
“We went straight over there and saw the little girl was dead. Her mother was holding her in her arms and was screaming. Rachel understood it was too late for her daughter. Adrian was also shouting, he was injured but conscious.”