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A man in Australia who murdered two of his neighbors with a shotgun over a feud about a garden hose was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Monday, with a judge describing the killings as “senseless and brutally violent.”
Rodney Lee, 74, had earlier pleaded guilty to the murders of Saumoto Gasio, 62, and Tibor Laszlo, 57, at their public housing complex in Melbourne in January 2022. The court heard a bizarre story of how a rising yearslong dispute between Lee and his neighbors finally spilled over into deadly violence.
Lee began taking an active role in maintaining the communal areas—including the garden—at the apartment complex in the suburb of Mordialloc in 2006. In 2020, tension started to build between Lee and other residents when he became angry about people drinking and playing loud music in the communal areas, and he even reported a new neighbor to police in 2021 over suspicions that the man’s grandson was dealing drugs, according to ABC.