‘It’s an Incredible Case, a Hatfield-McCoy Case If You’ve Ever Seen One’ : 80-Year-Old Sentenced to Jail in Shooting of Longtime Neighbor, 78

An 80-year-old man described as a curmudgeon even by his lawyer was sentenced Wednesday to one year in jail for shooting his 78-year-old Anaheim neighbor last summer after years of feuding over a barking dog and the white wooden fence that separated their houses.

Clarence J. Holbrook, legally blind in one eye and having difficulty seeing with the other, a victim of arthritis and emphysema, sat in a wheelchair in the North Superior Court of Judge James O. Perez and pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Alex Brunn, assault with a deadly weapon and inflicting great bodily harm.

Perez, who could have sentenced Holbrook to 12 years in state prison, instead ordered him to spend a year in the County Jail, serve five years’ probation and repay nearly $2,000 to cover Brunn’s medical expenses. The effect of the sentence is that Holbrook will probably be free in about three months, after he is given credit for time already spent behind bars and for good behavior.

Understood Lighter Sentence

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lew Rosenblum, who had urged that Perez send Holbrook to state prison, said afterward that he understood why the judge imposed the lighter sentence.

Rosenblum said Perez felt that Holbrook’s age and medical condition and the lack of any objection by Brunn made a punishment more lenient than a prison term suitable.

Holbrook’s lawyer, Bruce Bridgman, said he had hoped his client would not have to spend any more time in jail at all for his part in a “classic struggle between two old men over some ridiculous fence.”

Referring to Brunn and Holbrook, Bridgman said that “these two old fellows, and I would characterize them both as curmudgeons . . . , they lived peacefully next to each other for years.”

But “as each of them got older, small things seemed to rile each of them,” Bridgman said.

Several years ago, Rosenblum said, Holbrook stabbed Brunn after a spat over Brunn’s dog, which Holbrook felt was barking too much. The prosecutor said Holbrook was spared a prison sentence after promising not to possess any weapons.

Last Aug. 15, however, the arguments that had gone on for years over the shoulder-high white wooden fence--over who should repair it, who should paint it and whether it should be there at all--erupted again in violence, Rosenblum and Bridgman said.

Brunn said after the shooting that he had emerged from his house that morning to find Holbrook standing by the fence with a hammer, hatchet and crowbar. When he asked his neighbor what was going on, Holbrook cursed, he said.

Hammer and Broomstick

Bridgman said it was not clear who threw what first, but police said Holbrook threw a hammer at Brunn, who hit Holbrook with a broomstick. Both men went into their houses and came back outside. “When he saw me, he started shooting,” Brunn said in an interview shortly after the shooting.

Police said Holbrook fired five times and hit Brunn twice, once in the shoulder and once in the thigh. Brunn was discharged from the hospital the next day, Rosenblum said, and Holbrook has been jailed in lieu of $100,000 bail since the incident.

“It’s just an incredible case, a Hatfield-McCoy case if you’ve ever seen one,” Bridgman said. “It’s a tragic situation that these two old men couldn’t settle their differences. They both had these peaceful lives, law-abiding lives, and to think they couldn’t settle an argument over this little fence, it’s tragic.”

Rosenblum said that after the shooting, the twin daughters with whom Holbrook lived moved from Anaheim to Fullerton. He said Perez ordered that when Holbrook gets out of jail he not leave Fullerton unless he notifies the judge or his probation officer.