Bogart — A man is facing a murder charge after authorities say he shot and killed a motorcyclist who followed his daughters home from a department store.
Richard Harold Gear, 45, claimed he was acting in self-defense when he shot Bryan Joseph Mough around 6:45 p.m. Monday as Mough drove his motorcycle past Gear's house, Oconee County Sheriff Scott Berry said.
The daughters, ages 17 and 19, had called their father on a cell phone to tell him they were being followed, Berry said. As they arrived home, Gear was waiting at the end of his driveway with a pistol, Berry said.
Mough, 21, drove past the house, turned around and made another pass. Gear fired his .40-caliber semiautomatic gun two or three times, hitting Mough once in the back, Berry said.
Gear called 911 after the shooting, as did neighbors, and sheriff's deputies arrested Gear on a murder charge, Berry said.
"He made an unspecified claim of self-defense," Berry said.
Mough was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Gear's daughters and Mough apparently left the parking lot of a Target in nearby Athens around the same time Monday evening, Berry said. Tempers flared as the drivers headed west toward Bogart.
Gear's daughters told investigators Mough cut them off, they made obscene gestures at him and Mough ran into their car at one point, Sheriff Berry said.
"There is evidence of a collision between Mough's motorcycle and the vehicle operated by Gear's daughters," Berry said, adding authorities do not yet know who initiated contact.
"We've got questions about how it happened," he said.
Investigators went to Target for witnesses and looked at surveillance videos but found nothing to indicate Mough met the girls inside the store or in the parking lot, Berry said.
