Neighborhood shaken after shooting

By Scott Moyers ~ Southeast Missourian

A blonde woman stood behind her screen door, talking on the phone and staring toward the mobile home on the hill.

Not 50 feet away, two sisters who live in side-by-side trailers chatted quietly in their front yard, one nervously twisting her wedding ring, while their children giggled on a swing set.

Across the way, a man and woman shared a cigarette on their front porch, chatting about the shocking events of the morning.

By 11 a.m. Friday, about two hours after one of their neighbors allegedly shot another neighbor at her mobile home, the Star Vue Mobile Home Park had all but returned to normal: quiet, subdued and safe.

But not entirely. Yellow police tape still stretched across the street keeping would-be gawkers away from the crime scene. A police car was still parked along the street, and an officer stood guard on the front porch.

Not to mention that some of the neighbors said they remained badly shaken by the fact that something so horrendous could happen so close by.

"I'll think twice about letting my kids go outside," said Cristi Clifton, 28, who has lived at Star Vue -- which is tucked away behind Fountainbleau Lodge on North Kingshighway -- for about four years. "I made them come inside. They said he was still at large."

Broken silence

Usually, Clifton said, it's pretty quiet. But it wasn't Thursday morning at about 9 a.m. when shotgun-toting police, firefighters and other emergency personnel invaded their neighborhood.

That was after a 911 call reported that a woman -- it turned out to be Mary Boitnott, who lives with her husband,Robert -- had been shot in the head. Police believe the assailant was a man named Wilford S. Griffith, who lived a few trailers up the hill from Boitnott.

Police said Griffith entered Boitnott's mobile home and shot her in the back of the head. She was still in bed. Griffith then went to Ed's Bar on Good Hope Street, where he exchanged gunfire with a patron there. Griffith was killed in that exchange.

"Hopefully, it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing," Clifton said. "But I'd like to move out of this trailer park. My kids like to ride their bikes outside, and I don't want to keep them in."

Jeremy Hammack, 29, lives a short distance from the mobile home where the shooting took place. He said he heard the gunshots as he was sipping his morning coffee.

"I heard a shot. Pop!" he said. "But I didn't think anything of it. Kids around here shoot off fireworks sometimes, you know. It's usually so peaceful in this area. I never thought it was a gun."

Hammack, who recently moved to Cape Girardeau from Dallas, said he was used to shootings in Texas.

"I have a wife and kids here," he said. "We heard this every day in Dallas, but I'm surprised it happens here like this."

Stephanie Price, 27, has lived at Star Vue for about two years. She said there have been a few vandalism incidents, and someone had stolen her mail before.

"But nothing like this," she said. "People around here pretty much keep to themselves. That this happened makes me very nervous."

Bart Meek, 31, said the mobile home park is not a bad place.

"But I'm not around much. I drive trucks," he said. "I may move. I don't want to have to worry about where I live."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137