When the city threatened to fine an elderly neighbor who couldn’t afford to have her lawn cut, Larry Bowser immediately went into action to help, a characteristic for which he will be remembered in his Maplewood neighborhood.

Bowser’s 90-year-old father called 911 Saturday night to report that he’d shot and killed his son with a pistol.

Kenneth Henry Bowser surrendered shortly after the 7:40 p.m. shooting on Hilltop Court, said Maplewood Police Chief Paul Schnell.

Larry Bowser, 65, was found dead in the house.

His father — whom neighbors say had grown increasingly stricken with dementia — had become forgetful over the past few months.

“He’d do things like forgetting to turn the gas off on the stove,” said neighbor Paul Johnson.

When Larry Bowser first moved in with his father a few years ago, it was the father who was helping by taking in his son, Johnson said. But in the past year, the son had been the one taking care of the father, he said.

“Ken started getting dementia and Alzheimer’s,” Johnson said. “He’d need help getting on and off the toilet. Things like that. He needed constant care.”

When a detective knocked on his door to tell him about the shooting, Johnson, who said he was a former crime scene investigator for the St. Paul Police Department and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, knew immediately who was involved.

“I could see it coming,” Johnson said. “I wasn’t surprised. When the detective said someone had been killed, I said, ‘Larry, huh?’ ” Because Larry had been telling me how he’d been putting up with his dad’s dementia, (his) becoming forgetful and creating dangerous situations. The thing that everyone is wondering about, though, is the fact that (Ken Bowser) had a gun. Larry never said nothing about that.”

A block away, friends who gathered in Barry Bauer’s large garage watching football on Sunday remembered the friend who would have been with them snacking, chatting, drinking beer and watching the game.

“He would be sitting here with us right now,” Jaimie Freyberger said.

Bauer’s wife, Joyce, said she saw Larry Bowser on Saturday cutting a neighbor’s lawn. “He always liked to keep busy and he liked helping others.”

Joyce Bauer and Larry Bowser went to White Bear Lake High School more than 45 years ago, she said.

“He was just a good guy,” she said. “Once he had on a sweatshirt and I told him I liked it and he gave it to me,” she said, choking up a little as she talked about it.

Barry Bauer said Larry was a handyman in the neighborhood, doing odd jobs here and there for money or for nothing in exchange. He would often show up at the Bauer house and start whacking weeds or plowing snow.

“He’d say, ‘Let me have at it. I’ll get her done,’ ” said Bauer, whose home is around the corner from the Bowsers’ place. “Or I’d come home from working two jobs and my snow would be shoveled. He’d said he knew how hard I worked and wanted to help out.”

It wasn’t long ago that Larry Bowser had come over and told him about the woman who needed her lawn cut before the city fined her. “He came over and said, ‘Hey, we got a mission, man. I need to borrow your lawn mower. They are going to charge her if we don’t get her lawn mowed,’ ” Bauer remembered Sunday. “She got her lawn mowed and the cost was only a couple of chocolate chip cookies.”

Another neighbor, Sharon Pearson, who lives across the street, said she didn’t know Larry Bowser well, but that one time when he saw her struggling to shovel snow, he came over to help out. “He was always friendly and always waved. I just saw him walking yesterday and we said hello,” she said.

Most neighbors said they didn’t even know the father lived at the home or that Bowser was caring for him.

Melanie St. Sauver, who lived directly next door to the duplex, said she had never seen the father in the year she’d lived next door.

“He always had a big smile. He dominated the room,” Freyberger said of Larry Bowser.

As they sat watching football, the friends said that while it was nice to get together Sunday, Bowser’s death had made it an emotional day of ups and downs.

Sitting near a large table spread with snacks, the friends sat talking, drinking beer and watching football like a normal Sunday.

But something was definitely missing from this get together, Freyberger said.

Larry Bowser.

“We are having a beer for Larry,” said Becky Pomorin, raising her bottle.