MAD RIVER TWP. — A complaint about dog feces was the only thing that preceded an Enon Beach resident firing a shotgun into a neighbor’s trailer, residents say.

That led to a series of shootings that left the resident and a Clark County sheriff’s deputy dead and a German Twp. police officer wounded.

Enon Beach manager Don Northrup said resident Michael Ferryman complained Friday that a neighbor’s dog had defecated in his yard. Northrup said the call was non-threatening.

The complaint was about dogs owned by David and Elke Harrison, who had lived in a trailer next door for about three months. Elke Harrison said they had only talked to Ferryman and his girlfirend once when the Harrisons first moved in and “they were a nice couple.”

The Harrisons and two friends were awoken Saturday by Ferryman yelling outside their trailer.

“Get the hell out,” he yelled, Elke said. “Right after the words, the gunshot came.”

The shotgun pellets came through a porch screen, and scattered. Some hit an outside furnace, others flew through the door window. The pellets flew right over the Harrisons’ bed and out the window on the other side, some lodging in the trailer wall and shattering the light bulb above their bed.

Some of the pellets may have graced David, or it may have been splintering wood that left cuts on his arm and face, Elke said.

“Thank god we had slept in,” she said.

They called the sheriff’s office. Deputy Suzanne Waughtel Hopper responded and Elke followed some footprints. Elke heard her call to her partner before Ferryman fired the shot that killed Hopper.

“She said ‘come here, I need your help,’” Harrison said. “Not really distressful, but louder.”

Police responded from across the area. German Twp. Patrolman Jeremy Blum was wounded in a following police shootout, after which Ferryman was found dead.

Elke said she’s grateful to be alive, but is haunted by the whole incident.

“I’m still shaking. I get nightmares. I can’t sleep,” she said.

Elke said she hopes a minor complaint about a dog wasn’t what started the whole thing, but she doesn’t know what else would have set Ferryman off.

“There was no problems. I didn’t even talk to him for like three months,” she said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0374 or jsweigart@coxohio.com.