By Melba Newsome, July 2007

What would you do if your family and your home became a target?

Edwardsville sits on the low north bank of the slow-flowing Kansas River west of Kansas City. A small, quiet town on the outer edge of the urban sprawl with six churches and two baseball diamonds, a shopping mall a few kilometres down the highway. It's about as middle class as US towns come these days, with family businesses, local political squabbles – a place where everyone knows everyone else.

So when Donna Ozuna and her daughter Carmen moved to 94th Street, Stephanie Eickhoff, who lived across the way in an 80-year-old white A-frame house, remembers baking a batch of Valentine cupcakes in February 1999 to welcome them. Ozuna, a short, stocky woman with intense eyes and black hair streaked with grey, was neither rude nor friendly. She thanked Stephanie for the goodies but didn't invite her inside. Ozuna claimed she had moved to town to escape the noise and kids from the school near her home in Kansas City. But it didn't take long for people to get the feeling that she was different – more guarded and easily riled than most people in the neighbourhood.

Frosty relations
Ozuna seemed obsessive about her privacy and her property, cranky when kids played in the street, set foot in her garden or rode their bikes too close to her lawn. She guarded her brick ranch house as if it were a castle under siege. Over time, neighbours say, relationships went from cool to downright frosty, and small encounters escalated into rows. They claim she complained to authorities about their dogs, shouted obscenities when someone cut through her garden and routinely yelled at neighbourhood children.

Trouble started, Lesli Trout says, almost as soon as she and her husband, Jesse, a heavy-equipment mechanic, moved into a house nearby. One day their 13-year-old son, Jeremy, came home looking scared and upset. He'd been out riding his bike and stopped at the edge of the Ozunas? garden. At that point, the Trouts say, Carmen stormed out of the house, told Jeremy to keep out of their garden and threatened him.

When a visibly upset Jeremy told her what happened, Lesli thought there must be some misunderstanding. "I walked over to apologise for him." Instead, she says, she encountered a still-agitated Carmen, who told her to keep Jeremy off her property or she'd sic her dogs on him.

Jesse would later try to smooth things over with the Ozunas as well. "I want to be friendly with my neighbours," he said. "I met Donna halfway in the street and apologised for anything my children may have done. She never spoke to me or looked at me the whole time." Things deteriorated and recriminations flew back and forth. At first, people around town characterised the tension and bad feelings as "a neighbourhood feud". It happens from time to time in neighbourhoods everywhere, and usually runs its course into a silent standoff. But Lesli Trout says that's not what happened here. "It wasn't a feud. It was one-sided. Her against everyone else." And, indeed, Ozuna's relationships with her neighbours were becoming more strained and hostile.

Criminal threats
Fourth of July barbecues at Jim and Stephanie Eickhoff's home are legendary in Edwardsville. The county lawman and his wife had always been active in local affairs and had a wide circle of friends. On Independence Day, 2001, about 70 people – family, friends, city officials – gathered on the two-hectare property for the annual celebration. Adults and kids alike swam and played games in the pool, danced to tunes played by a local DJ, and dined on barbecue. Just after sundown, the night lit up with sparklers, firecrackers, bottle rockets and Roman candles.

The Ozunas had not been invited this year, and perhaps that perceived slight set the stage for what happened next. When sparks from a Roman candle landed on her side of the street, party-goers say Ozuna charged out and began screaming. People tried to calm her down, but failed.

"Donna, it's the Fourth of July," Jesse Trout told her. "Can we give it a break for just one day?"

Ozuna's response, neighbours say, was to threaten to get a gun and shoot him. She then turned and headed back to her house. The police were called – and Ozuna and her daughter were arrested for making criminal threats.

Once they were released, however, the conflicts escalated. According to the Trouts, Ozuna phoned police with an endless string of complaints: the Trouts played music too loud; their children walked in her garden; they left a light on in the garage. She called animal control, the Trouts say, to come destroy a mad dog she claimed had tried to attack her. The dog turned out to be the Trouts' docile Dalmatian, which was firmly secured in their back yard.

Someone called the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS) to investigate allegations that the Trouts' children were being neglected and abused. "They claimed my kids went around begging for food and that I would leave them alone all weekend," recalls Lesli. The SRS keeps the source of complaints confidential, but the Trouts knew whom to suspect. Each time, the allegations proved false.

Mental warfare
It took nearly five months, but in December 2001, the district attorney charged Donna and Carmen Ozuna for the Fourth of July incident.

In addition to witnesses who were at the party, people from the neighbourhood where Ozuna had lived prior to moving to Edwardsville testified at the April 2002 trial. They told the court that they, too, had endured verbal threats and baseless complaints lodged with police, animal control and code-enforcement authorities.

Two former neighbours even testified that Carmen had pulled a gun on the mother of schoolchildren who cut through her garden.

The jury deliberated for less than eight hours before reaching their verdict. Not guilty. The neighbours on 94th Street were stunned. For the Trouts, the acquittal was the last straw. "I knew this would give her more reason to be a bully," Jesse says. They moved out of town.

Once they were gone, a conflict began with the Eickhoffs. Soon they were on the receiving end of police visits. SRS caseworkers began knocking on their door, saying someone had reported them for beating and starving their children.

"Caseworkers went through my cabinets to see if we had food,? recalls Stephanie. "Our children had to strip and be checked for bruises. The SRS interviewed them, asking terrible questions. I was angry and humiliated."

Alvin Doty, the local police officer who took charge of the case, says of all the false charges and allegations, "It was mental warfare, and the reports were generated simply for retaliation."

For her part, Ozuna claimed she was the target of harassment.

More accusations and threats
In March 2002, when Stephanie decided to run for mayor, Ozuna put up a "Vote Eickhoff Mayor" poster in her garden. Next to it she placed two handwritten signs. One read "Now, It's My Turn". The other "U R NEXT".

Like the Trouts, the Eickhoffs and their three kids – Arthur, 6, Lillian, 8, and Ashley, 14 – began to feel they were prisoners in their own home. The children were no longer allowed to play in the garden or the pool – or even go out on the school grounds during recess. Stephanie slept downstairs to keep an eye on the house across the street where Donna and her new husband, Ralph, lived.

When Stephanie Eickhoff won her race for mayor, an FBI agent turned up at her home on inauguration day. According to Stephanie, the FBI had received a civil-rights complaint alleging that the Eickhoffs were racists, intent on running Ozuna out of the neighbourhood because she was Hispanic. The charge seems strange given the fact that the community is racially mixed.

After getting her side of the story, the FBI apparently dropped the case. Stephanie never heard about it again.

An hour after sunrise on April 21, 2004, Jim Eickhoff turned into his long, concrete driveway. He, Stephanie and the kids had been away for a night of fun and relaxation. They'd stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge, a hotel and spa with an indoor water park. Jim had dropped Ashley off at school about 15 minutes earlier.

On the front porch, he found a package wrapped in brown paper and masking tape. The parcel had been sent from Lenexa, the neighbouring town, addressed to "James and Stephanie Eickhoff and Family". Inside were a box of glazed doughnuts, a Bavarian-cream coffee cake and a two-litre bottle of Vess root beer.

There was also an unsigned card congratulating Stephanie on being elected mayor. Jim immediately suspected something was wrong. Stephanie had been mayor for more than a year. Why would anyone be sending congratulations now?

Arrested for attempted murder
Looking closer, he could see that the seal on the bottle had been broken and it had a slightly green tinge. He called Stephanie, who was still at the Lodge. "A strange package came in the mail," he told her. "Don't touch it. Don't even go inside the house. Call the police and have them meet you here."

An hour later, Stephanie arrived, followed by two police officers. They took one look at the contents and removed them to send to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) for testing. A couple of days later, investigating officer Alvin Doty phoned. "We have reason to believe that this was an attempt on your life," he said. "Perhaps you should leave your house until we get this straightened out."

The Eickhoffs spent the next six weeks staying with friends and relatives. They returned home in mid-June determined to stand their ground. "This is our home," says Stephanie. "Running is a bad message to send your kids."

In the meantime, the KBI had determined that the doughnuts and cooldrink contained lethal amounts of lye and antifreeze. The Edwardsville police found evidence in Ozuna's rubbish linking her to the package contents. And a postal worker in Lenexa identified her as the sender.

On July 1, police arrested Ozuna and husband Ralph for attempted first-degree murder. The two made bail and were released. They held a news conference on the steps of the Wyandotte County courthouse proclaiming their innocence and again accusing the Eickhoffs of racially motivated harassment. Ozuna insisted that she and her family had always minded their own business and had never bothered their neighbours.

From July until March, the couple was free on bail, living across the street from the Eickhoffs. Then on March 31, 2005, someone reported to the police that Ozuna had once again threatened the Eickhoffs. A judge ordered her back to jail.

Back to normal
Trial was set for July 25, then postponed until September 19. Facing up to 20 years in prison, Donna Ozuna pleaded to two lesser felony counts of criminal threat. Her husband, who faced up to 16 years, pleaded to one misdemeanour count of assault. Ozuna received 18 months probation, her husband six months. They had moved from Edwardsville and were ordered to stay out of town.

Plea bargaining seems outrageous to many citizens, but often offers a means to expedite the judicial process, get quicker relief for the plaintiffs and reduced terms for the accused. Though people in their neighbourhood feel Ozuna got off easy, Stephanie and Jim Eickhoff are thrilled that they got their lives back – that their children can go outside to play and go to school without fear, that their neighbourhood is peaceful and friendly once again.

Bonnie Jacobson, a clinical psychologist and adjunct professor at New York University, says that feuding behaviour is common among people with fragile personalities. "They feel easily invalidated and react with rage at the smallest infraction. So if a person crosses a boundary into their 'territory', it's not like a tap on the shoulder; it's like a punch in the back. If a family member doesn't side with them, they feel betrayed. Trying to make peace with them often doesn't work, because it makes them feel justified and their behaviour escalates. You have to be firm and tell them, 'That's over the line'."

Sitting in her living room with the wistful sound of a freight train passing, Stephanie Eickhoff shudders at the prospect of what could have happened if the children had somehow come home first that day. If they had unsuspectingly opened the package and eaten the doughnuts and taken a drink.

With her family's ordeal behind her, Stephanie Eickhoff can begin to relax in her home again. And at last report, Donna Ozuna has moved on to another neighbourhood in Kansas.