A Palm Coast woman said her mother was asleep in her bedroom when screaming and banging started coming from the other side of the wall.
Then it began sounding less like noise from next door and more like somebody was trying to come through it.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were called to a duplex in Palm Coast’s B-Section early Sunday after a resident reported that her neighbor, 58-year-old Charles Bowden, was using a hammer and power tools to break through the wall separating their homes while making threats.
The resident had recorded part of it. Deputies listened as Bowden could be heard laughing, calling her names, and declaring, “I’m going to be crawling through the walls and figure out ways to make your life hell,” with hammering and a power tool audible in the background.
Through The Wall
Deputies found an approximately softball-sized hole in the wall between the two units.
Natasha Crockett told FOX 35 that her mother had been sleeping in the bedroom when the commotion started.
“She hollers at me again,” Crockett recalled. “She says, ‘Tasha… it sounds like they’re coming through the walls. Sounds like a skill saw, or I don’t know what.’”
Crockett grabbed her phone and began recording.
“He didn’t physically come through the wall,” she told the station. “I don’t know if he tried to stick his arm through there or not, but the hole is in the wall.”
Getting through the drywall was not the end of the deputies’ problem.
When they tried to contact Bowden, FCSO said he refused to speak with them and instead threw a bag out of an upstairs window toward the deputies.
He then remained inside for more than an hour and a half.
Different Walls
Deputies eventually reached Bowden by phone and convinced him to step outside, where they took him into custody.
Inside his side of the duplex, deputies found a hammer and an electric string trimmer near the hole. Both were covered with drywall residue.
Sheriff Rick Staly called Bowden a “neighbor from hell” and said he was thankful the incident had not escalated beyond the hole in the wall.
“Now this guy is sitting in the Green Roof Inn surrounded by walls he won’t be able to break through,” Staly said.
Crockett, meanwhile, told FOX 35 she was not going anywhere. She hired a contractor to reinforce and secure the shared wall.
“I’ve put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this property, and I’m not going to just leave because they’re terrorizing me,” Crockett said. “I’m not going to do it.”
Bowden was arrested on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and burglary with assault or battery. FCSO said he was taken to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility, where he was being held without bond.