Property Dispute Blamed for Murder-Suicide

NACOGDOCHES COUNTY — A double homicide-suicide in Nacogdoches County Friday was prompted by an ongoing property dispute and numerous past civil disputes, Nacogdoches County Sheriff Thomas Kerss said. Two women, Connie Moses, 58, and Helen Meeler, 59, were discovered fatally shot in the front yard of their Appleby home on CR 262 after a property dispute with their neighbor, 73-year-old Preston Skelton. Skelton was found hours later in the woods near his home, dead from a self-infliced gunshot wound, Kerss has said.

“There had been an ongoing dispute over a property line,” Kerss said. “The ladies that were shot had hired an individual to help them construct a fence along the boundary line, which would have passed into the driveway of the actor.” When the individual the women hired began to put the fence up, the actor exited his residence armed with a rifle, Kerss said.

According to the Nacogdoches Daily Sentinal, deputies had been sent out to the area numerous times over the past few months and weeks to respond to civil complaints, Kerss said.