A man who grew up in Jackman was shot to death in Florida two weeks ago, after the man accused of killing him told police they were arguing about a barking dog.

Family and friends are mourning the death of Dana A. Mulhall, 52, who graduated from Forest Hills Consolidated School in 1977. His neighbor in Florida, 65-year-old Paul Miller, of Flagler Beach, faces one charge of second degree murder in the March 14 shooting.

“I don’t know how we’ve survived going through this on a daily basis,” said Angela Mulhall, Mulhall’s mother, on Monday. “I don’t know where we find the strength, but we always do, somewhere, somehow.”

Angela Mulhall, 75, of Moose River, said her son ran his own landscaping business in Florida and called the mayor of Flagler Beach a friend.

Dan Cody, chief of the Flagler Beach Police Department, said Monday in a phone interview that Miller said he was sitting on his porch when Mulhall came home and complained about Miller’s barking dog. Miller went inside, got his 9 mm gun and stuck it in his pocket.

Then Miller walked to the approximately three-foot-high fence between them, where they argued. Miller told police that Mulhall was threatening him.

“Mr. Miller felt like he had a weapon from the gestures he was making, and he shot him at that time,” Cody said.

Miller fired three shots to Mulhall’s chest and legs. When Mulhall turned to run, Miller shot him twice on the back of his body, Cody said, though he didn’t know precisely where.

Mulhall died at the scene and police did not find a weapon on him.

Miller was calm when he called 911 at 6:15 p.m. to report the shooting, according to the redacted audio recording of the call.

“You might send an ambulance,” he told the dispatcher in the recording. “He’s laying in his yard over here.”

He added, “We’ve had trouble before.”

When the dispatcher asked where his gun was, he said, “Laying outside. On the porch.”

The dispatcher then asked, “So we don’t know if he’s breathing or anything?”

“Nope, don’t know,” he said.

Near the end of the call, the dispatcher said, “OK, I’m going to probably have to keep you on the line though until we can get law enforcement–“

Miller interrupts her, “I’ve got to hang up and call my wife. I’ll be right here on the porch.”

“He just hung up on me,” the dispatcher said.

When police first arrived, Miller pointed them in the direction of where Mulhall lay, according to a Flagler Beach Police Department report.

Mulhall was face up between his home and the bushes and had blood on his legs, pants, shirt, left hand and was bleeding from the nose, with a pool of blood on the ground to the left of his head. He was pronounced dead at 6:37 p.m.

According to the report, Miller also directed police to the 9 mm semi-automatic gun, which he had put inside his house. Police noted the spent shell casings on the ground.

Miller’s wife gave police permission to search the home, and they found more ammunition, four oxycodone pills, a substance they suspected to be marijuana, two partially burned marijuana cigarettes and a small pipe with residue inside.

Miller is being held at the Flagler County Inmate Facility without bail, according to a spokeswoman there. A woman who answered the phone at the medical examiner’s office for Flagler Beach said the cause of death in homicides is not public information in Florida.

Bizarre and tragic

Mulhall’s mother said it’s still hard to believe her son is gone.

Dana Mulhall worked for Scott Paper Co. after he graduated from high school and was then badly injured in an accident, she said. Frustrated and unable to work, he decided to move to Florida to live with friends and possibly heal in the warmer climate.

He did heal and decided to stay. He had lived there for the last 19 years and was self-employed in the landscaping business for 17 years, she said.

She described him as giving, helpful and understanding. He also had loyal customers. One man sent her a card after her son’s death and wrote that Dana Mulhall had taken care of his lawns for 17 years.

In high school he enjoyed playing basketball and baseball. He loved boating, snowmobiling, hunting and fishing. She recalled a time when he and her other son, Michael Mulhall, took her moose hunting.

When her son was young and had friends over, she said she enjoyed making homemade doughnuts for them. Her family, which also includes her husband, Douglas, and her daughter, Karen Theriault, liked to go swimming and have picnics.

She said she is thankful for the outpouring of support from the Jackman and Moose River communities.

“At a time like this we feel that we need the friends and the neighbors and the relatives, everybody staying together, and I think that’s what’s pulled us through,” she said.

According to FlaglerLive.com and Angela Mulhall, Dana Mulhall counted Linda Provencher, the mayor of Flagler Beach, and her husband, as friends.

Vonda Paradise, 52, grew up with Dana Mulhall in Jackman and now lives in Flagler Beach. She described the shooting incident as bizarre and tragic.

Her first thought when she found out what happened was, “You’ve got to be kidding me. Flagler is a small community of 5,000 people. You’d think you’d be safe, but you never know,” she said.

Dana Mulhall was a well-liked, hard-working man who will be missed, she said.

While it hasn’t been cited as applying to this shooting, Paradise added that she believes Florida needs to revisit its Justifiable Use of Force Law, especially after the fatal shooting last month in Sanford, Fla., of an unarmed black teenager, Treyvon Martin, by a neighborhood watch volunteer.

The so called “stand your ground” law allows people to use deadly force if they believe it is necessary to prevent a crime.

“That law needs to be looked at and re-addressed,” she said.

Mulhall’s burial will be at 10 a.m., May 19, at St. Anthony’s cemetery in Jackman. A gathering will follow at the American Legion hall. Both are open to the public.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be sent to Jackman Alumni Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 531, Jackman, ME 04945.

Erin Rhoda — 612-2368

erhoda@centralmaine.com