From friends to enemies: Auburndale neighbors' dispute pulls in police, courts
AUBURNDALE — The home that John Murray shares with his mother, Tina Murray, has a fortress feel.
Thick blackout curtains cover the windows in the living room, reinforcing the protection of the closed blinds and allowing little natural light to penetrate. The drapery creates an almost dungeon-like atmosphere.
John Murray regularly wears wireless headphones inside the house, receiving signals from his TV that he sets at high volume.
Outside — where John only ventures after dark — a newly installed, wooden privacy fence mostly blocks views of the neighboring property to the north.
All of that reflects John and Tina Murray’s desire to screen themselves from neighbors they claim have engaged in a months-long campaign of “terrorizing” them that has made life miserable inside their 1,100-square-foot home on Pine Street.
“We have a nightmare on our hands next door,” Tina Murray said. “It’s been a living hell.”
John Murray, 39, bought the house in 2004 and expected to live there perhaps for the rest of his life. But he now says that if he ever wants peace again, he will have to vacate the house — though Tina Murray questions whether anyone would be willing to buy it.
The Murrays accuse their next-door neighbors, Nicholos “Dee” Cole and Jessica Hall, of a daily campaign of harassment continuing since early March. They say their neighbors have bombarded them with noise, deployed barking dogs against them, directed lights into their house and regularly hurled verbal insults at them.
More recently, the Murrays said, the neighbors have falsely accused John of being a pedophile.
The dispute has drawn the attention of city officials, as the neighboring residents frequently call the Auburndale Police Department on each other, resulting in dozens of police responses. Cole now faces two charges of stalking, one based on a complaint from another Pine Street resident.
Separately, Cole has amassed code violations for years related to the home and an adjacent lawn-care business he operates. Auburndale recently imposed a lien of $1.8 million against his properties, based on unpaid fines.
John and Tina Murray, though, complain that the city has not done enough to address their concerns and has repeatedly let their neighbors get away with disturbances of their peace.
Cole insists he is not deliberately trying to bother his neighbors.
“There’s no ill will or any malicious (intent) or any sort of bothering,” Cole said when told of the Murrays’ complaints. “Unfortunately, they're not necessarily happy with the landscape supply yard I've opened for my children here. But as far as any sort of ill intent or anything of any nature, I have no hard feelings toward them or against them.”
John Murray has been diagnosed with a mental illness, Tina Murray said. His parents worry that the continuous stress of the past six months might cause him to harm himself.
“He’s being pushed beyond what he can take,” Tina Murray said, “and I’m afraid something bad is going to happen.”
Used to be friends
John Murray said that he has known Cole since they were 17, and the neighbors used to get along well. Both Cole and Hall worked for years in a print shop owned by John’s father, Jim Quinn.
Quinn sold Hall a lot next to his son’s house in 2007, the site on which Cole and Hall built their home. Quinn said that he loaned Cole money to help start a lawn-care business that now dominates much of Pine Street north of Hall and Cole’s house.
Cole owns at least three other properties on Pine Street, according to records from the Polk County Property Appraiser. His two businesses, 4 Leaf Lawn Care and More Than Mulch, occupy multiple lots on both sides of the street.
The work yard on the east side of Pine Street is bordered by private houses not owned by Cole or Hall. There are also houses across the street, adjacent to Cole’s mulch yard, which covers two lots. Two of Cole’s properties are zoned for commercial use, while properties to the north and south — including Cole and Hall’s home — are zoned residential.
Tina Murray, 58, who moved into the house with John last fall (she is divorced from Quinn), said she and her son are not the only residents of Pine Street with complaints about Cole, 39, and Hall, 40.
John Murray, who is on disability, used to allow Cole to park lawn equipment in his back yard. A dispute over Cole and Hall’s dogs, though, ended that practice and prompted the neighbors’ harassment campaign, the Murrays said.
Early this year, Cole and Hall began keeping a pair of dogs caged adjacent to a chain-link fence at the property line, about eight feet from John Murray’s kitchen window, Tina Murray said.
“All they did was bark, and we couldn't make a move in our house without them barking,” she said. “We couldn’t open the refrigerator door without them barking because they could see the light at night. It was so close to our window they could hear us.”
That prompted the Murrays to install the darkening curtains, but they said the barking continued. John Murray said he asked the neighbors to move the dogs away from the border fence, and they refused.
Increasingly upset about the noise, John Murray on Feb. 28 ordered Cole to remove the equipment from his yard. A few days later, the Murrays said Cole or Hall placed coverings over all sides of the dog cage except the one facing the neighboring house. That caused the dogs to bark even more often in response to any sights or sounds from next door, they said.
Claims of nonstop noise
Cole has a system of alert chimes on his properties, with multiple speakers arranged throughout his yard, the Murrays said. Cole has told Auburndale police that the chimes alert him to the arrival of a customer at one of his business lots.
Tina Murray disputed that, saying that on some days the chimes go off about every 20 seconds and continue for hours at high volume. She shared recordings of the chimes, which emit sounds suggesting cell phone ringtones.
Auburndale Police Chief Terry Storie said that business is exempt from noise ordinances for sounds resulting directly from industrial activities, but he doesn’t think Cole’s alerts meet that standard.
The alerts are loud enough that a resident on another street recently filed a complaint with the Auburndale Police Department. That allowed the police to submit an affidavit to the State Attorney’s Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit charging Cole with disorderly conduct, a second-degree misdemeanor.
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John Murray, who remains home while his mother works a daytime schedule, regularly wears headphones throughout the day with the volume turned up to mask the barking and chime system from next door.
Cole has generated noise late into the night by driving his equipment, including a tractor and a gas-powered golf cart, near the edge of the Murrays’ property, they allege. Cole told a reporter that his business operates on two shifts, and the associated sounds can continue into the night.
At times, John Murray has fought back with noise of his own. In a petition for a protective order, Hall alleged that John Murray repeatedly blew an air horn out of his kitchen window toward the dogs.
The Murrays say Cole has also deployed his business equipment as weapons in the alleged harassment campaign. In March, they said, he placed a dumpster in front of the Murrays’ house and began banging on it at night, calling out, “Tina Murray, you're not going to sleep! I know you have to work.”
Cole parked a trailer in front of the Murrays’ mailbox, preventing the postal carrier from delivering mail, Tina Murray said. The Murrays called the police, and a towing company came out to the property. Cole then parked a tractor in front of the trailer, blocking access to it, and the tow truck left, Murray said.
Storie said that Cole often waits until after a code enforcement officer’s shift ends to park his commercial vehicles along Pine Street. He said he has ordered a worker to check the street after hours, resulting in at least one recent citation.
The Murrays also complained about high-powered lights that Cole erected on poles at the edge of his property, with one directed at their back yard. Tina Murray compared the brightness level to that of stadium lights.
Since starting his business about 15 years ago, Cole has acquired additional properties on Pine Street for as little as $6,000. Tina Murray suspects that he and Hall are trying to run off their son so that they can buy his house cheaply and perhaps expand their business.
Tina Murray said she is a breast cancer survivor whose family has a history of heart disease. Murray said the stress and sleep disruptions of the past six months have been bad for her health and that of her son, who she said has a rare blood disorder.
Accusations around dogs
Cole’s dogs figured into another element of the dispute. With the cage up against the property line, the neighbors used a hose to funnel the dogs’ waste through the chain-link fence and onto the Murrays’ property, Tina said. She suspects the waste pile created a toxic sludge that flowed back into the dogs’ pen.
When one of the dogs died in May, Hall accused John Murray on social media of killing the animal, Tina Murray said. Hall made the same claim in a court hearing.
Soon after that, Hall filed for a protective order against John Murray on behalf of her daughter, a minor living in the Pine Street home, for alleged repeat violence. In the petition, Hall wrote that Murray had beaten on the dogs’ cage and warned that if the neighbors didn’t keep the dogs quiet, he would take care of them himself.
The dog died “of eating something toxic” less than a week later, Hall wrote. Her daughter had grown afraid to go outside for fear that John Murray would yell at her if the remaining dog made noise, the petition said.
The experience had caused the girl “mental anguish and depression and emotional distress,” Hall wrote.
On June 6, Judge Torea Spohr denied the injunction, citing insufficient evidence to support it.
Tina Murray filed for a protective order against Cole on June 1, accusing him of stalking and harassing her and her son. The narrative described incidents of sound disturbances, the parking of commercial vehicles and Hall’s alleged verbal threats.
Judge Gerald P. Hill III denied Murray’s petition in July, ruling that the claim lacked sufficient supporting evidence.
Storie said he had advised Tina Murray months earlier to seek a protective order. He said that she has also declined to pursue a potential cyberstalking case because she isn’t willing to have John forced to testify in court.
Criminal complaints filed
While Murray’s petition for an injunction was denied, Cole has recently been facing two criminal complaints. The State Attorney’s Office filed a document on May 2 charging him with stalking Tina Murray, a first-degree misdemeanor, based on a complaint from the Auburndale Police Department.
The report documents events starting in March, including Cole’s alleged noise-making, parking of vehicles to block access to John Murray’s property and verbal threats. A pre-trial hearing is scheduled for Sept. 27.
The State Attorney’s Office filed another charging order against Cole for stalking on July 27, with the alleged victim another resident of Pine Street.
The report says that Cole had “willfully, maliciously and repeatedly” followed, harassed or cyberstalked the woman and her daughter, who has autism. The incidents began in February, when the woman complained to Auburndale’s code enforcement office that Cole was parking his equipment on and near her property, blocking access and damaging her mailbox.
At one point, Cole entered the woman’s driveway to complain about a call to code enforcement and then claimed he injured himself tripping on the uneven sidewalk, the report said.
The police “determined that the defendant willfully and continually harassed the victim, which caused emotional distress,” the report said. “The defendant’s course of conduct served no legitimate purpose over the course of time reported by the victim.”
The alleged victim, whose name was redacted in court documents, declined to speak to a reporter. An arraignment in the case is scheduled for Sept. 11.
'Beside myself' over accusation
The Murrays say that Cole and Hall verbally harassed John, to the point that he has stopped going outside during the day, even to check the mailbox or take out the trash. Tina Murray called her son “a prisoner in his own home.”
John does sometimes venture outside at night. On July 28, he went out to his back porch to watch a planned launch of a Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center and used his phone to record video.
Murray said that Cole and Hall’s teenage daughter came outside and began provoking him. The neighbors soon called the police on each other, Tina Murray said, and when officers arrived Hall accused John Murray of videotaping the girl. Tina said the police examined John’s phone and found only a recording of the rocket.
The Murrays have security cameras installed around their house, and John said a review of the videos showed the police that he had not done what the neighbors claimed. He fears that without such video evidence, he might have been arrested based on a false charge.
Cole and Hall have also accused John Murray of going onto their property and taking pictures through the daughter’s window, he said. Murray said he would have to scale a 10-foot, chain-link fence to get into the yard next door, an impossibility because of severe back and knee problems.
Hall has accused John Murray of being a pedophile, verbally and in Facebook posts that Tina Murray shared. The posts identify a “neighbor” and not Murray by name, but he and his mother say anyone familiar with the situation knows she is referring to him.
“I'm beside myself because that's something you don't back away from,” Tina Murray said. “What they're doing is very wrong, and they’re posting it on Facebook.”
John Murray said the accusation could keep him from being able to find an apartment if he is able to sell his house.
“I don’t care about the lights,” Murray said. “I don't care about the buzzers, I don't care about the dogs. I care about that label, because that's a low label, and whether you're innocent or not it hangs over your head for the rest of your life. And he does have a few friends on Pine Street, and they already believe I killed his dog. And now all of them are online saying the person who killed their dog is a pedophile.”
Facing $1.8 million lien
Auburndale has repeatedly cited Cole and Hall for code violations dating to at least to 2015, generating fines that this summer resulted in a lien of $1.8 million being imposed against their property.
Code enforcement has cited Cole and Hall for unauthorized off-site advertising, prohibited uses and structure, inoperable vehicles, improper storage of commercial or industrial vehicles, high grass and weeds, junk and debris and erecting a structure without a permit — including an above-ground swimming pool in their back yard.
By 2015, Cole and Hall had accrued fines totaling $27,250, and by 2018 the amount had grown to $35,750.
In July, a special magistrate signed an order imposing a fine of $735,000 on Cole and Hall. The magistrate wrote that the couple were 2,942 days past the deadline for compliance, with fines of $250 a day beginning on June 19, 2015.
The magistrate signed a second order against Cole alone imposing a fine of $98,750 for violations dating to Jan. 19, 2018. The case cited violations for high grass and weeds and junk, trash and debris.
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Cole said he did have a permit to install the pool. He referred a reporter to his lawyer, Brent Geohagan, for other questions about code violations. Geohagan did not respond to a voicemail.
A lien bars an owner from selling a property until it is paid, and in theory a city can eventually seize a property, unless it is classified as the owner’s homestead.
Storie said the city uses fines and liens in hopes of bringing a violator into compliance with codes.
“It's not supposed to be criminally punitive,” he said.
The Murrays and Quinn expressed concern about a construction project on Cole and Hall’s property that apparently has not been a subject of code violations. They said that Cole installed a 250-gallon fuel tank on his property to supply his business equipment, and they worry that it be a safety hazard.
Storie said that the Auburndale Police Department referred Quinn’s complaint to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The agency sent out an inspector, who found no violations, Storie said.
Police hit from both sides
Quinn regularly calls and emails Storie to complain about what is happening on Pine Street. He and Tina Murray have also spoken at Auburndale City Commission meetings. They said they feel ignored.
Meanwhile, Cole has portrayed himself in social media posts as a small-business owner being unfairly bullied by the city. Calling himself “a broken man,” he wrote on Facebook in June: “It comes with the deepest of regret and sorrow but due to the city's relentless request to screw me I will be closing the mulch yard and selling off the properties. I'm sorry to say that all I've built for my children will be lost.”
Quinn dismissed that as a bid for pity and said Cole has no intention of closing his business.
Storie, the police chief, said his agency is caught in the middle of an increasingly intense personal dispute. He said it has reached the point that his department responds almost daily to a call from one of the neighbors. He said a code enforcement employee joked that he now devotes all his time to Pine Street.
Storie said both sides have grown belligerent toward city employees. He has warned Cole about harassing receptionists during phone calls to the police department, and he said the city has blocked emails from John Murray over his use of profanities.
The police chief said he has received about 200 emails from the Murrays or Quinn since early June and has replied to almost all, even when they come after hours or on weekends. He took umbrage at their suggestion that the police department is ignoring their concerns.
“This has been very difficult because, on the one hand, you have Jim Quinn telling everybody the police department, the city, is not doing anything,” Storie said. “On the other hand, you look at Cole’s Facebook posts, the city's doing nothing but picking on him. This has gotten to be very personal between the two of them, and they want the police department to intervene.”
Storie said that whenever his department has found probable cause, it has submitted information to the State Attorney’s Office for a potential prosecution. He emphasized that the police cannot solve all conflicts between neighbors.
“They are very, very disgruntled with each other,” he said. “It’s very difficult to kind of navigate those waters between what's criminal and what's civil code and those sorts of things. I'm not sure that everybody understands the difference in what can be done and what can't be done.”
John Murray said he does not foresee a positive resolution to the conflict without law enforcement action.
“Even if everything was put back the way it was, you know what’s not going to change? My neighbor,” he said. “That’s going to be my neighbor as long as I live here. So long as I live and he’s my neighbor, I'll never have any peace. I’ll never be able to be in this house and do things like anyone else — watch TV without headphones on, sleep without ear plugs, go out to get my mail.”
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Auburndale neighbors' dispute yields police visits, criminal cases
