Man jailed in Pasco shooting: 'I feel bad for his parents … but I don't regret that I killed him'

LAND O'LAKES — Qiu Feng Ke says Edward Tudor was "just unlucky" to become the one he shot to death this week in their Holiday neighborhood.

It could have been a past neighbor who had treated him poorly. Or, Qiu said, if he moved away from Richboro Drive, it might have been the next one.

It was Tudor, his neighbor of four years, who pushed him too far, Qiu said Thursday, handcuffed in his orange and white striped jumpsuit inside the Pasco County Jail, where he is being held without bail on a first-degree murder charge.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Pasco man planned, then carried out neighbor's execution, sheriff says

He said Tudor made so much noise that he couldn't get a good night's sleep. And, Qiu insisted, Tudor did it on purpose.

The two neighbors argued for months over a litany of small nuisances — the sound of alarm clocks, running water, vehicle noise, loud talking, the brightness of a flood light on Qiu's house. It went back and forth, he said.

"I am very easy and very nice to people," the 60-year-old Qiu said. "But some people are more predatory people. They take advantage of me."

This time, Qiu said, he had had enough.

"He didn't know when to quit," Qiu said of Tudor. "I knew between me and him, I'm going to stand my ground. I'm not going to let him drive me away. … This is why I say he's an unlucky guy."

He said for a brief moment, after Hurricane Irma, he thought their lengthy feud might have ended. The two men talked about getting along, as they removed plywood from windows. And for a night, Qiu left his windows open while going to sleep.

Perhaps, Qiu said during a nearly hour-long interview, he might not have to go through with his plans to kill his neighbor.

But before the night was over, he continued, Tudor was again making loud noises and asking friends if they could tell if Qiu was sleeping. They were mocking him, Qiu said.

Even then, he went on, his idea was to wait until his March birthday, when he turns 61, before deciding whether to shoot Tudor and then hang himself before police arrived.

He wouldn't wait that long. According to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, Qiu burst into Tudor's home at 3519 Richboro Drive about 12:20 p.m. Tuesday and shot Tudor with a 9mm pistol. Tudor made it to his front yard, where he begged for his life before Qiu shot him again, said deputies.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Friends say victim in Pasco execution-style slaying was kind, laid-back

Qiu had security cameras on his house that recorded the event. He said he put them there to monitor his neighbor's actions.

Neighbors and friends, interviewed earlier this week, described Tudor in much different terms. They said he was a kind and easy going person who had grown frail with health problems, and they couldn't imagine him getting into a confrontation with anyone.

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The night before the shooting, Qiu said he had changed the cover of the tent he used to block the light and sound from his neighbor's home. It wasn't working.

"I knew that day I wasn't going to get sleep," he said. "That morning I went out to get my things organized."

That included getting his will notarized.

Then he said he shouted to Tudor, "Why don't you come out and talk to me? Don't just hide in the house."

He threatened him: "You dig a hole. I'm going to bury you."

He said he could hear the neighbors mocking him still.

"I just lost it," he said.

He got his guns, went into Tudor's house, and Tudor came to him.

"He said, 'Oh, what did I do?' That made me mad," Qiu said. "I said, 'You know what you did.'"

That's when Qiu started shooting.

"It's really hard to shoot people," he said, adding that he didn't want to shoot Tudor in the face. "I knew I had to finish him. … There was no turning back."

Asked whether he regretted his actions, Qiu said, "I feel bad for his parents because they lost their son. I am sorry for them. But I don't regret that I killed him."

He said he didn't have enough time to kill himself, and he no longer plans to commit suicide. Instead, he said, he intends to ask for the death penalty.