Ariel Gonzalez Rodriguez was 24 years old when his wife Katherin woke him at midnight on March 26, 2026.
He heard noises near the chicken coop in Naples, Florida, and feared that a bear was attacking the animals. Rodriguez went out with a .22-caliber rifle, fired warning shots into the ground and, still unconvinced, went back inside for a larger weapon. He fired again toward the ground, but when he believed the noise was getting closer and that the animal was going to attack him, he aimed at waist height toward the neighboring property and fired once more. He did not go to check. He told Katherin that he feared he had injured the bear and preferred to wait until dawn so as not to take any risks.
At 8 in the morning, he walked to the neighboring yard and found Jason Sheffield, 30, a father of four, lying face down among the vegetation, with a gunshot wound to his back. Hours earlier, they had shared a barbecue in that same yard. Rodriguez called 911 and said that he feared he had accidentally shot his neighbor. Investigators took four months to charge him with manslaughter with a firearm, after concluding that he fired at an unidentified target near an occupied home without confirming what it was.