A Citra man was arrested for stalking Wednesday after a woman reported receiving a litany of threatening messages on her cell phone.
When deputies arrived at a home on NE 162nd Street, they made contact with a woman who was struggling to get into the residence. She told deputies that 58-year-old James Larry Hall had changed the locks and wouldn’t allow her to go into the house.
The woman told deputies that Hall would frequently become “upset and irate” before calling her and leaving threatening voicemails. She said he left one Tuesday while she was on a boat with friends at a lake celebrating her birthday. She said when she returned home shortly before midnight, the two had an altercation and law enforcement was called. She said she “grabbed some clothing and stayed at her mother’s house,” a sheriff’s office report states.
The woman claimed that Hall called her cell phone throughout the day Tuesday, leaving messages threatening her and her friends. In one message, he said he “would kill everyone and did not care” and in several others he threatened to hurt a male friend, the report says.
The man who took the woman and her friends out on the boat said he also received a threatening voicemail telling him, “You better make yourself scarce.” The man said Hall claimed to have been at his house and “trashed” it but there was no damage at his residence.
The woman told deputies that Hall had caused disturbances at her place of employment and made threats to kill her on a night when she wasn’t working, the report says.
During the investigation, the woman said she feared for her life, partly because she had recently discovered that Hall had been in prison and had a previous battery arrest.
Deputies confirmed that Hall had served 15 years for attempted second degree homicide with a firearm and had a domestic battery conviction in Charlotte County, then took him into custody and transported him to the Marion County Jail, where he was charged with aggravated stalking and held on no bond.
Hall is scheduled to appear in a Marion County courtroom Oct. 2 at 9 a.m. to answer to the charge.