A nasty neighbor feud in Affton took a dangerous turn last week when a St. Louis County Public Works employee showed up to inspect some unusual equipment — and ended up staring down the barrel of a gun.
William O. Luton, 56, of Craighill Drive, is sitting in the St. Louis County Jail after allegedly confronting the county worker with a firearm, racking a round into the chamber, and ordering him to the ground. Prosecutors say Luton then demanded the worker’s identification, walked off with his badge and pen, and landed himself a felony robbery charge on top of the weapons accusations.
What brought the county worker there in the first place? Luton had rigged up light and noise machines on his property, pointed squarely at a neighbor’s house. Prosecutors say the setup had one purpose: to annoy that neighbor. Court records also note Luton had filed a pile of Sunshine requests with the county, digging for information on the Public Works employees who’d been responding to complaints about him — and there have been plenty of those.
Luton’s attorney, Ethan Corlija, is pushing back hard. He calls the felony robbery charge “ginned up” and takes issue with prosecutors highlighting Luton’s Sunshine requests as if filing public-records requests is criminal. As for the confrontation itself, Corlija says the county inspector showed up around 5:30 a.m., and his client genuinely thought someone was snooping around his windows — possibly a peeping Tom. He says Luton never ordered anyone to the ground, only asked for ID, and that Luton himself called the police after heading back inside. The noise machine, the attorney adds, is just meant to keep rodents away.
This isn’t Luton’s first run-in with the neighbors. A 2022 police report describes an earlier dispute with a different neighbor over tree-cutting, when an octogenarian neighbor reportedly poked Luton with a stick, sending him tumbling into his door jamb. She told police it was a joke. No charges were filed — though Luton separately sought a restraining order, accusing her of shoving him into a brick wall the same day.
For now, Luton remains in custody on a $500,000 bond. At a hearing Monday morning, a judge denied his attorney’s request to lower it.
