Families Pick Up Where Their Sons’ Deadly Feud Left Off

Barely a week after a Simi Valley man was convicted of shooting his neighbor to death, a bitter feud still simmers between their two families in the form of slurs, accusations and the threat of dueling restraining orders.

The families no longer live side by side in the tree-lined east-end neighborhood where the Dec. 5 shooting shattered their lives, an otherwise quiet place where the streets bear women’s names like Gertrude and Vanessa. The shooter’s house on Helene Street is up for sale.

But the parents of convicted murderer Christopher Harbridge and the late Ronald Rowe are still trading barbs in court pleadings and accusatory letters.

And their neighbors, who find themselves taking sides with one family or the other, are starting to express disgust at the ongoing feud.

“It’s sad, it’s just sad,” said one longtime Helene Street neighbor who would not give his name. “I think they just want to argue against each other.”

Rowe and Harbridge argued off and on for nearly two years over seemingly petty disputes involving things like broken light bulbs and vandalized lawn equipment.

On Dec. 5, the skirmishes flared for the last time. Harbridge fatally shot Rowe after a verbal fight, and later claimed the shooting was in self-defense because Rowe had hit him in the back of the head with pepper spray.

On March 21, a jury found Harbridge, 27, guilty of first-degree murder for the slaying of Rowe, 30. He is due to be sentenced April 18.

But Rowe’s death and Harbridge’s conviction did not end the disputes between their families:

As he left the courtroom, Harbridge raised both middle fingers in an obscene gesture at the Rowe family.

That same day, the victim’s father, John Rowe, petitioned for and won a restraining order against Harbridge’s father, John Harbridge.

The elder Rowe alleges in court papers that the elder Harbridge “walked toward me in a threatening manner and pointing at me he told me, ‘Because of you, of our sons are dead.’ ”

“I would have let it slide,” Rowe said in an interview Thursday. “But my wife decided she was scared, so we got a restraining order.”

John Harbridge, who lives in the San Fernando Valley, denies having threatened John Rowe, saying that “a restraining order on me is not necessary, because I have nothing further to say to any of the Rowes.”

In fact, the elder Harbridge says that after reading the restraining order Friday, he drafted a letter that he plans to deliver Monday to the judge who issued the order.

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The letter says that John Harbridge was inside the courthouse lobby after his son’s conviction. He spotted John Rowe outside, and he held open the glass door for the other man.

“I told him I hope he was happy, now he’s killed both our sons,” the letter says. “I wanted him to know that I knew he had encouraged and joined his son in harassing Christopher.”

And earlier this week, Harbridge’s mother, Paulette (Kathy) Harbridge, wrote a letter to John Rowe accusing him of “trespassing on my property” and “further harassment,” although she now lives in Northridge and is trying to sell the house where her son lived.

Kathy Harbridge said that she plans to request a restraining order of her own against the elder Rowe, to keep him away from the Helene Street house.

“He has been on my property several times when the workman’s truck is there,” she said in an interview, near tears. “What is he doing, harassing me, still? . . . I don’t want that man on my property. It is none of his business.”

For his part, John Rowe said a handyman invited him next door to help him lift a few things, and he recalls only loaning tools to the man and going inside the house at the invitation of a real estate agent.

“The Realtor came over and got me,” Rowe said. “She wanted to show me what a mess it was.” The Realtor and the handyman could not be reached for comment.

As he read Kathy Harbridge’s letter, Rowe shook his head and said sourly, “This is just more harassment.”

In the wake of the shooting, the Helene Street neighbors have taken differing views on whether Ronald Rowe or Christopher Harbridge was the worse aggressor in the long-running feud that left one dead and the other in jail facing a possible sentence of 28 years to life.

One neighbor, who would not give his name, said that residents saw trouble coming long before the shooting. “The cops would come down here perpetually, and every time they’d leave, I’d say, ‘If this doesn’t stop, something’s going to happen here, and it’s going to end ugly,’ ” he said.

Another neighbor said that she saw John Rowe go next door recently to help the handyman make repairs to the Harbridge house, “but it didn’t look at all like a harassment situation.”

She said it was difficult to believe--but not surprising to hear--the allegations of harassment flying back and forth between the Rowes and the Harbridges.

“I can understand the Rowes: Chris shot their son and he also pointed the gun at the father,” she said. “But the father that’s lost his son to prison, he’s going to have to go through the same grieving process. Well, not exactly--he’ll get his son back--but when you lose a child like that, it literally tears you apart, physically, emotionally, mentally.”