Mental health crisis, HOA dispute led to Shelby County standoff and father, son found dead, family says
Carol Price is hurt. And she is angry.
Price’s ex-husband and eldest son were the two men found dead earlier this week following a standoff and exchange of gunfire at a home in Shelby County’s The Narrows subdivision off U.S. 280.
The events leading up to the deadly standoff began years ago with an $830 homeowners association assessment dispute, Price said. It all ended Tuesday with the shooting death of Price’s son, 48-year-old William Chenoweth Jr.
Bill Chenoweth, 74, was found dead and decomposing in the bathtub. The Shelby County Coroner’s Office said there was no foul play involved in Bill’s death.
“I’m very angry at what happened,’’ said Price, a CPA in Virginia. “This was my biggest fear, and this is what happened.”
“I don’t want this situation to go to waste,’’ Price said. “I want to change HOA laws in Alabama and the country.”
“That was the catalyst behind this entire situation,’’ she said. “It’s astounding, but it tells you things spiral out of control despite someone trying to prevent it.”
‘It just made everything worse’
The Chenoweth family members were longtime Mountain Brook residents.
After the couple divorced in the early 2000s, Bill moved to Shelby County and bought the house at 249 Narrows Drive in 2005.
William had been taking care of his father since 2013.
Price said the ordeal began in early August of 2020. She received a phone call from The Narrows HOA management company looking for her ex-husband, Bill.
Price told the caller she believed Bill and William had been living at the Chenoweth family’s lake house on Logan Martin and gave them the address. They already had the only phone number Price had for them.
“I also told them at the time that my ex-husband was not well, mentally or physically,’’ Price said.
Price’s younger son, 35-year-old Stephen Chenoweth, took his own life in the same Narrows Drive home after a lengthy struggle with physical and mental health issues.
Both Bill and William took the suicide hard.
“He was already not well,” Price said of her ex-husband, “and it just made everything worse.”
Price was told in 2020 that there was an issue over the HOA assessment for mowing the lawn.
“These lawn areas around these houses are very small and the assessment was for $830,’’ Price said. “I offered to pay the assessment, and it was refused since I didn’t own the property or have any standing with the property.”
Price sought an alternative and spoke with her brother-in-law about arranging to have the lawn mowed separate from the HOA but was told that she couldn’t do that, again because she had no legal rights to the property, and was told it would be considered trespassing.
Sherry Hill, a manager for the HOA, declined to comment.
“That $830 assessment grew into $3,033, I guess interest and legal fees,’’ Price said. “I don’t know what the rules are in Alabama. I know if an HOA is due so much by an owner, they can then put a lien on the property.”
That’s exactly what happened in 2022. But Price doesn’t understand why it didn’t just stop there.
‘Why is that allowed in Alabama?’
“A year later, the house was foreclosed on and auctioned off for (under $14,000) and that’s what it sold for,’’ Price said. “Only one person showed up to bid on it.”
“The house was totally paid off and it was in fairly decent shape,’’ she said. “According to Zillow, it’s worth about $375,000.”
William “Bill” Chenoweth Sr., 74, shown in an undated photo.(Contributed)
In late September 2024, Price said she received a call from a Shelby County sheriff’s sergeant looking for information on who was living at the Narrows Drive home.
She told him her ex-husband lived there, and he had owned the house since 2005. The sergeant told her there was an eviction order for the home.
“I said, ‘That makes no sense. Why would he have an eviction order?” Price said. “He said the HOA had foreclosed the home and auctioned it off.”
The eviction order was obtained by the new property owner in August 2024.
“Apparently, Alabama laws allow it, which needs to be changed,’’ Price said. “Why is that allowed in Alabama? Who was not watching?”
“The sheriff’s office actually asked me if there was anything I could do to stop this,’’ she said.
‘Somebody needed to step in and protect him’
In October 2024, Price’s Birmingham attorney filed an intervention on William’s estate, and also requested to be appointed Bill’s temporary guardian.
“I thought that would be the least invasive way to go about figuring out what was happening,’’ she said.
Price said her ex-husband was always financially responsible with bills.
“Is he that far gone that he’s not keeping up with anything anymore?” she said. “And if that were the case, somebody needed to step in and protect him.”
“He’s elderly, he has mental and emotional and physical health issues,’’ she said. “I told everyone — our son has a very high IQ but did not function very well in life. He had a very small circle he could function in.”
Price said a guardian ad litem appointed by the court told her on the phone months ago that she thought Bill was dead and that their son was spending his 401k.
“She knew nothing, and that’s what she assumed,’’ Price said. “I knew my son would not do that. That’s not the kind of person he was.”
A lengthy HOA dispute and eventual eviction process led to a deadly standoff in Shelby County on Jan. 28, 2025 in The Narrows subdivision. William “Bill” Chenoweth Sr., 74, and William Chenoweth Jr., 48, were found dead inside the home.(Carol Robinson)
“I did tell the court investigator or researcher, I said, ‘If anything, if my ex-husband passed away, my son wouldn’t know what to do. He would probably just put a blanket over the body and go on with life in his little circle,’’’ Price said.
Price traveled to Shelby County in November because there was a court hearing for temporary guardianship, which she was denied. The case was also put on the court docket for potential conservatorship.
Price’s sister, a probate attorney in California, joined Price in Shelby County. “I had her come out because I knew I was not going to understand everything and I wanted somebody who knew to be there,’’ said.
The sisters visited the Narrows Drive home multiple times but could not get anyone to the door.
They asked the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office to do a welfare check. She said the deputies concluded there was nobody inside the house and that the vehicle in the driveway was not operable.
Price said she and her sister went back several times at different times of the day. On one of those visits, her ex-husband could be seen in the living room, stretching and pushing up the sleeves of his seater.
“We kept knocking and he didn’t come,’’ she said. “He was alive.”
‘His life was in the computer world’
They went back to the house the following morning before returning to Virginia. Price quietly tapped on the window.
She had not spoken in previous visits, but that time said, “Bill, this is Carol.”
Bill, she said, started talking but she couldn’t understand what he was saying. He then stopped talking.
“I wondered if he’d had a stroke because his father died of a stroke and to me that sounded similar to how his father talked after he had a stroke,’’ she said.
Price was back in Alabama in January when she was again denied guardianship or conservatorship.
“I had to petition the court, under direction of the court, for an involuntary commitment order issued Jan. 14 as it was the only option provided,’’ she said.
“I also requested I be on scene as I knew my son would stay calm, if he were there, if he knew I was there.”
The pickup did not happen then, so Price returned home.
“I was told that three judges were looking at the situation, that the sheriff’s office was hesitant to go in with the medical person that she assigned to the case,’’ she said.
“That’s where it was left. I was told the judges were trying to make sure nobody’s constitutional rights were trampled.”
Price said nobody knew for sure if her son William was living in the house.
“They only knew he came and went, brought in food, put out the trash and that was the extent of anybody’s knowledge of his whereabouts,’’ she said.
William, she said, graduated from Mountain Brook High School and attended Emory University. He scored a 34 on the ACT and a 1400 on the SAT with no preparation.
“His life was in the computer world, and I know he used to write code for high-end gamers, and he would get paid for that,’’ she said. “I don’t know any of that was still going on.”
After his brother Stephen died, Price said, she lost contact with William.
“Every now and then I would text or try to call and there was no response and then that phone was cut off,’’ she said. “That was not unexpected.”
Neither Bill nor William ever showed up to any of the court hearing throughout the probate proceedings. “This process has been going for several years,’’ Price said.
That process came to a head Tuesday morning.
‘This is going on all over the country’
Sheriff’s officials said deputies went to the home at 8:31 a.m. to serve the mental health commitment order for Bill Chenoweth issued by the Shelby County Probate Court.
“Deputies announced their presence multiple times, and out of grave concern for Mr. Chenoweth’s wellbeing, the decision was made to attempt to force entry to investigate the welfare of the occupants of the residence,‘’ sheriff’s officials said.
The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office’s multi-jurisdictional special operations group requested an interior drone, operated by an Alabaster police officer, to conduct a remote sweep of the inside of the residence.
“During that time, an occupant believed to be 48-year-old William Arthur Chenoweth, Jr. fired at deputies with a handgun, who were posted outside of the residence,’’ the SCSO statement read. “Deputies returned fire at which time the shooter retreated within the residence.”
Deputies established a perimeter around the house and attempted to begin communications with the shooter. After multiple attempts by crisis negotiators, gas irritants were deployed inside the home about 10:40 am, without a response.
Again, after multiple attempts by crisis negotiators, at 1:33 pm, Sheriff John Samaniego authorized the multi-jurisdictional Tactical Response Unit to enter the house.
It was then William was found dead from a gunshot wound in his bed. He had previously been seen sitting in a recliner, but apparently moved to the bed after the gas was deployed.
Bill was found dead in the bathtub, “in a later stage of decomposition.”
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency at that point took lead in the investigation.
“A large team of court and mental health professionals worked on a plan, with deputies, to offer aid to Chenoweth Sr. for months leading up to today,’’ Samaniego said. “This is not the outcome anyone wanted.”
A standoff was underway Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in the Narrows off U.S. 280 in Shelby County.(Contributed)
On Tuesday, Price was tied up all day with clients. It was about 5:30 p.m. when she said she checked her phone to find missed calls and text messages.
A text from one of her friends, a Birmingham attorney, alerted Price to a news article about the fatal stand-off.
“That’s how I found out,’’ she said. “From what I know and what was said, there’s some CYA going on there.”
Asked if she believed her son would have shot at deputies, Price said, “It’s possible, yeah. If he felt threatened, he would have shot.”
Previously asked if William had a gun, Price said, “I did not know, and I made that clear.”
Price said she believes Bill probably died around Christmas.
“But I think he was quite sick before then,’’ she said. “William would not have known what to do.”
“The coroner said there was a blanket nicely tucked around him, and I could see William trying to do what he could,’’ Price said.
“I honestly think he was afraid to leave the house, that it would be taken, but I don’t even know if he had that level of understanding.”
“I was sending him letters of what I was doing and why, but I’m not even convinced he actually lived there,’’ she said. “He may have been staying there since his father died. I don’t know and I don’t think anybody knows.”
Price said if the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office had such grave concerns about Bill, they would have gone into the home in November when she asked for the welfare check. She said the agency is inadequate in dealing with mental health issues.
She said changes need to be made to the system as far as the HOA debacle.
“This is a bigger issue than two people being killed,’’ she said. “It’s an issue that Alabama needs to address and it’s an issue that needs to be addressed nationwide.”
“You’ve got an elderly man who isn’t functioning and you’re taking his house from him,’’ she said. “It’s totally immoral.”
“I found out this is going on all over the country,’’ she said, “and this is elder abuse.”
Chief Deputy Clay Hammac said law enforcement faces challenges in responding to individuals in mental health crisis.
“What we know is that it requires a multitude of resources from not only law enforcement and other first responders and the court system, but the community and families as well,’’ he said.
“Our profession is continuing to evolve and focus on addressing the needs of the citizens we serve across all spectrums of crisis,’’ Hammac said.
“The greatest tool we have is the partnership with the citizens and the community we serve, specifically with understanding a holistic approach with providing safety and service.”
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