MARCH 22--After being denied a kiss yesterday by a neighbor 39 years her junior, a 92-year-old Florida woman allegedly returned to her home, retrieved a .380 semi-automatic handgun, and fired several shots into the man’s residence.

Aged pistolero Helen Staudinger was arrested last night and charged with aggravated assault and firing into an occupied dwelling, according to a Marion County Sheriff’s Office report. Staudinger is pictured in the mug shot at right.

Investigators allege that Staudinger went next door to speak with Dwight Bettner, but her 53-year-old neighbor asked her to leave. In an interview with a sheriff’s deputy, Staudinger said she told Bettner that she would not leave unless he gave her a kiss.

Bettner declined, which triggered an argument between the Fort McCoy residents.

That is when an incensed Staudinger returned to her home, got her gun, and allegedly fired into Bettner’s residence. Bettner, who was hit by flying debris, was not seriously injured by the gunfire.

Staudinger told a cop that she had planned to “shoot his car that he loved so much.” Investigators believe that she instead “fired diagonally through the victim’s carport hitting the house with all four rounds fired.”

Bettner told police that he has had “on-going issues with Ms. Staudinger and feels that she is enamored with him.” He added that he had previously told his neighbor that he had a girlfriend, “at which time Ms. Staudinger allegedly threatened to shoot him.”

A sheriff’s deputy reported that she recovered Staudinger’s weapon--with a bullet in the chamber--from an end table in the nonagenarian’s living room.

Staudinger, facing a pair of felonies, is being held in the county lockup in lieu of $15,000 bond. (4 pages)