A man allegedly shot and killed a woman with an AK47 and injured her boyfriend in a row over dog poo, it has been reported.
The man accused of killing the slain 21-year-old and shooting her boyfriend is said to have pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
Michael Close, 37, is charged with gunning down Isabella Thallas on June 10 outside his home in Denver, Colorado, US.
According to reports the deadly row was sparked during a confrontation over where the attacked couple’s dog was defecating.
The Denver Post reports that Close denied the killing before Denver District Court on Monday.
He is accused of opening fire with an AK-47 from his apartment on Thallas and her boyfriend, Darian Simon, who was shot twice but survived the shooting.
Close is claimed to have used a gun he’d taken from a Denver police officer, Sgt. Dan Politica, who was his friend, police said. The rifle was the sergeant’s personal gun, and was taken without his knowledge, according to officers.
He appeared virtually for his arraignment from prison and spoke little during Monday’s appearance, most of his face obscured behind a mask.
Reports say he will now undergo a court-ordered ‘examination of his sanity’, where experts will consider his mental state during the shooting and whether this qualifies him for an insanity defence.
Ana Thallas, Isabella’s mother, told the Denver Post the plea was “absolutely disgusting.”
She said: “I’m furious. I’m so furious. What upsets me the most is the fact he knew right from wrong.
“He admitted to what he did, he even showed a sense of remorse after he did it. If someone knows right from wrong and that they screwed up, how is that insanity?”
She said she remembered her daughter as a girl who liked to be at the top of her class as well as a dedicated gymnast with a ‘kind heart’ who loved children and had hoped to start a family of her own.
Close is due back in court on May 10, and his trial is set to start on September 8.