By Joseph M. Morgan; with Marla Jones reporting

Attorney for Ronnie Neeley finally speaks out, teen gunshot victim from Sylvania responds

Editor's Note: After almost six weeks of silence, Ronnie Neeley's attorney finally offered his client's side of the story in a statement through the Times Journal, a Fort Payne newspaper.

In an EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SOUTHERN TORCH, 17-year-old shooting victim Ethan Bethune goes on the record, offering his own account of the event that is starkly different than the story reported in the Times Journal. 

A SOUTHERN TORCH EXCLUSIVE:

SYLVANIA, Ala.—After almost six weeks of silence, Ronnie Neeley of Sylvania has finally offered his account through a statement from his attorney regarding his side of the events that occurred the night of April 24 that led to Neeley’s arrest for the shooting of Ethan Bethune, a 17-year-old Sylvania teenager.

Neeley, 64, was charged on April 27 with two counts of menacing, one count of discharging a weapon into an occupied vehicle and one count of second-degree assault. According to the victim, Ethan Bethune, he and a group of nine other Sylvania teens were planning to roll their principal’s yard with toilet paper on the night of April 24.

Bethune told the Southern Torch that the teens parked their two vehicles on the side of the road on County Road 682 to make their approach to the principal’s home undetected. He said they were then approached by a speeding car and jumped into a ditch to hide. According to Bethune, Neeley exited the vehicle, drew a handgun and leveled the weapon at their heads.

Bethune said Neeley began yelling at the group with the weapon still drawn on them, demanding to know what they were doing. Bethune said the group was frightened and tried to explain that they were only planning to roll their principal’s yard.

“He started cursing and put a gun in our face and said to leave," Bethune said. "We started walking to the car when he fired off two shots in the air. Everyone started running and getting into their car. The driver was so scared that he couldn't unlock the door and sped off.

"I ran and jumped into the back of the truck and that is when I was shot. We sped off and I was hurting real bad. The other guy in the truck told them I had been shot. We were too scared to stop until we got to one of the parents house."

Neeley’s attorney W.N. “Rocky” Watson released a statement on Wednesday through Fort Payne newspaper, The Times Journal, offering the first account of the incident from Neeley’s perspective.

Watson’s account contradicts statements from Bethune that the vehicles were parked along the county right-of-way along the side of the road, claiming instead the vehicles were physically on Neeley’s property about quarter of a mile away from Neeley’s home in front of a storage shed.

According to the report, Watson said Neeley’s wife saw the teens and Neeley got into his vehicle and drove to confront the children. Watson claims that Neeley then approached the unarmed teens and drew his weapon, yelling at them.

According to Watson, instead of cowering in a ditch between the county-owned right-of-way and Neeley’s property, the unarmed teens began approaching Neeley. Watson also said that prior to their approach, contrary to Bethune’s account, the teens did not respond to Neeley’s demands to know what they were doing but instead began walking toward Neeley.

Watson claims that Neeley then drew his pistol and fired three “warning” shots into the ground. The report said Watson believes Bethune was hit with a ricocheted bullet. Bethune’s account corroborates the number of shots. Bethune says, however, that two “warning” shots were fired into the air (not the ground), making a ricochet highly unlikely if not impossible, and the third was fired into the fleeing vehicle as the teens attempted to escape the gunfire. Police reports confirm that Bethune was in the vehicle when he was shot.

According to the Times Journal report, after firing the three shots, “Watson said they were unsure of how many people scattered from the sheds to the cars.” The statement is too vague to say for certain, but could imply that, according to Watson, the Neeley’s account was that a number of the children were not only physically on his property, but perhaps inside or around one of the two sheds instead of cowering in the ditch along the county right-of-way or near the vehicles on the side of the road itself.

Multiple attempts to reach Neeley’s attorney before press time were unsuccessful. If convicted, Neeley could face up to 20 years in jail.