Woman Hits Neighbor With Bat For Being on 'Her' Side of Fence, Police Say

A St. Charles County woman broke her neighbor’s arm with a baseball bat while the neighbor and her husband were attempting to mend a fence Friday, police said.

When Jennifer Shuttleworth saw her neighbor’s working on a fence that separates her property from theirs in the 1900 block of Diehr Road, she came outside with an aluminum baseball bat at about 5:35 p.m. Friday, according to a St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department report.

The area is just south of Lake Saint Louis.

A deputy said Shuttleworth confronted the woman because she was on her side of the fence line, but the neighbor said she was on an easement. The woman was retrieving a plank that had fallen off the fence, according to a St. Louis Post Dispatch article.

When the husband got involved in the conversation, Shuttleworth poked the bat through a hole in the fence, trying to strike the man standing on his property. Then she pulled the bat back through the fence and fell down.

Shuttleworth got up and began swinging the bat at the woman, striking her in the forearm. The woman was transported and treated at St. Joseph West Hospital in Lake Saint Louis.

Police said the couple has had ongoing difficulties with Shuttleworth for more than a year. 

Shuttleworth was charged Monday with one count of second-degree assault and one count of third-degree assault.

She is being held in St. Charles County jail. Bail was set at $30,000, cash only.