Police describe it as a plot to scare the homeowner into moving. A resident told ABC7 News the loud banging and smashing of walls sounded like extreme horseplay.
"I live on top, right over there and I just heard the commotion," said Etuate Faiva, a neighbor at the Villa Serena Apartments.
The commotion he describes started just before 11 a.m. Tuesday in an apartment, only feet from where he lives.
"Somebody was getting into a fight or something, like punching of the walls and stuff," said Faiva.
What sounded like extreme roughhousing or horseplay turned out to be much more.
"I was about to call 911 when I heard the police coming," said Faiva.
According to police, what he heard was the homeowner confronting a man who had broken into his apartment. There was a fight that didn't end, until investigators say 54-year-old Robert Lindsey was dead stabbed in the back of the neck with a knife by the home owner.
"As they prepared this and they talked about it, she gave our suspects keys to the residence," said Pittsburg Police Lt. Ron Raman.
Pittsburg police arrested 28-year-old Charmaine Taijeron. They say it was she who orchestrated the break-in.
This is how, investigators say, it all played out: Taijeron and her boyfriend and one of his brothers, and two other friends, conspired to break into the home of Taijeron's husband after she gave her accomplice her keys. Police say Taijeron's husband had learned that she had been having an affair with Matt Parker. The couple decided to separate and the husband had agreed to leave the home. Police tell us that Taijeron didn't believe her husband was making an effort to leave the apartment fast enough.
"This angered his wife to the point where she plotted a burglary with her current boyfriend in an effort to scare him and persuade him into leaving the residence," said Raman.
The apartment sits empty, the four suspects are in jail, each being held on a $1 million bail. Neither Taijeron's husband or their two children, ages 5 and 8, were injured in the incident.
