A 25-year-old Florida man shot and killed his neighbor after mistaking him for a bear in the backyard, People magazine reported.
Ariel Gonzalez Rodriguez’s wife woke him late at night after hearing suspicious noises outside. She feared a wild animal had broken into the chicken coop, so Rodriguez went out with a rifle and fired several warning shots into the air. The noise continued.
Unable to see anything in the darkness, Rodriguez fired toward the source of the sounds. They stopped. Believing he had wounded a predator and fearing it might attack him, he went back inside.
The next morning he found his neighbor, 30-year-old Jason Sheffield, lying face-down in the grass. Rodriguez called police.
Rodriguez told authorities he had never had any conflict with Sheffield. Hours before the shooting, the two families had barbecued together. Sheffield is survived by a wife and four children.
