There were a thousand things about the situation that frustrated Darren Galbraith over the last two years.

He had to start locking up his house and his trucks in safe, little Nephi because a mentally challenged boy who lives two houses down had a habit of letting himself in. He had to tell his kids, especially his young daughter, to lock themselves in the house when the adults weren't around.

He worried when kids were playing outside because that boy -- 13-year-old Colton Heaton -- might show up and play a little too rough with the smaller kids, or throw sticks and rocks, or get into something in the yard and hurt himself.

He said he's escorted the teen out of his yard many, many times because of misbehavior. Galbraith and his wife, Kallie, say they've seen Colton almost get hit by cars, expose himself in public and poke neighborhood dogs with sticks, and they went to the police with a report that he threw rocks at their daughter and bruised her.

And the real frustration, they said, is that Colton's mother goes ballistic on anyone -- adult or child -- who makes so much as a perceived slight against her son.

Colton's mother, Carrie Heaton, disputes all of this, blaming it on prejudice against her son and mean-spirited people. Heaton and the Galbraiths acknowledge they've been at odds for some time, and the blizzard of accusations and counter-accusations is dizzying. Each side accuses the other of harassment. There have been exchanges of obscene gestures, shouting matches and face-to-face confrontations that nearly came to blows.

Sometimes there are two or three incidents a week. The Galbraiths and other neighbors say Colton needs more supervision, but so far requests to various authorities haven't gone anywhere. Heaton says people are picking on her son and harassing her family.

When things get heated and the police show up, officers -- except for one occasion -- have simply talked to the parties and moved on.

Last Wednesday, after Galbraith was already in bed, a Nephi police officer knocked on his door and said there'd been a spitting allegation against him. It's not clear who the alleged victim was -- Carrie Heaton said he spit on her 8-year-old daughter, while Galbraith said he was accused of spitting on Heaton's companion, Brad Morgan, and merely yelling at the kids.

He denies spitting on or yelling at anybody, but he'd had it. He was frustrated and angry that no one seemed interested in fixing a situation he saw as unlivable and potentially dangerous. So he took a piece of cardboard and some spray paint, made the now-famous, politically incorrect and mispunctuated sign -- "CAUTION RETARD'S IN AREA" -- and hung it from a tree so that his neighbors would see it.

It was directed, he now says, at the adults in Colton's life, not Colton.

Publicity over the sign thrust a neighborhood dispute into the public eye and made Galbraith the subject of ridicule and derision. He may be charged with violating the city's sign ordinance, and the Juab County Attorney's office said Friday they're researching the possibility of invoking Utah's new hate crimes statute.

The neighborhood itself, however, has been oddly quiet since then -- no yelling, no squaring off and no wandering Colton, said the Galbraiths.

"I may have gone overboard. I understand that," Darren Galbraith said. "There's been a lot of bad for us, but a lot of good has come out of this. I finally got some attention."

Lloyd and Barbara Sundquist, who live between the Galbraiths and the Heatons, agreed.

"It's been really, really nice this past week," Barbara Sundquist said. "I haven't heard one scream or yell or nothing."

But these tensions have been brewing for a long time, and a court hearing over the only official sanction in the dispute -- disorderly conduct citations issued to both parties -- doesn't take place until Aug. 28.

Can the cease fire holdfi

Carrie Heaton is used to people having trouble with Colton. It was the same in the mobile home park where they lived before moving to the house in southeast Nephi, and it's all people making much ado about nothing, she said.

"He looks as normal as you or I, so I get, 'He's just an unruly, undisciplined child.' No. He's not," she said. "Disabilities -- you don't have a look to you if you have a disability."

Colton has been described as autistic and as having the mental capacity of a child half his age. Heaton said her son "fits under that autism umbrella" and has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and a seizure disorder. He attends special needs classes at school.

He can, for example, count the number of coins in his hand, but can't distinguish the denominations. He is outgoing and physically affectionate -- sometimes enthusiastically so -- even with complete strangers. During an interview Friday, he for the most part sat quietly when instructed to do so by his mother, although he had to be reminded from time to time not to touch the visitors excessively.

"He's a sweet, loving little guy," Heaton said. "He'll sit here and he'll ask you your name 50 times and things like that."

What he doesn't do, she said, are the multiple things neighbors accuse him of doing, and she bristled at suggestions that Colton rummages among people's possessions or steals food.

"He doesn't go into people's houses," she said, although she acknowledged that he did enter the Sundquists' home uninvited once. "He doesn't rifle through people's things and he doesn't eat their food. He doesn't wander the street. ... He doesn't throw rocks. He does toss that pea gravel in the air to watch it fall, but he doesn't throw rocks with malice or anything like that.

"People like to use him for a scapegoat. They're always threatening, if he steps on their grass, 'Well, we're calling the cops. We're calling the cops.' You know whatfi Call the cops."

Morgan said Colton is the victim.

"If a kid in the neighborhood does something wrong, rather than taking the blame, he'll say, 'Colton done it,' " he said. "That's human nature for a kid: 'I ain't going to take the blame for this. We'll get the handicapped kid in trouble.' "

The Nephi Police Department, however, tells a different story.

"He'll walk into a house, he'll go here, he'll go there," said Sgt. Carl Howard, one of the officers most familiar with the disputes. "He'll pick up things and throw them at cars."

One time Colton wandered in to an elderly woman's bathroom while she was in the bath, he said. Howard said he understands the neighbors' frustrations and that juvenile and family services workers have convened to discuss the case.

"I can see it from both sides of the fence," he said. "It's too bad they couldn't settle this in a more civil and dignified manner."

Nephi police chief Chad Bowles had harsh words about the sign.

"We've never had anyone so ignorant as to do something like that," he said. "You're deeply wounding all those people who have special needs children and you're offending the whole town. I guarantee you, that sign will not be going back up."

He also said he expects good behavior as the parties wait for the Aug. 28 hearing: "What we're doing here is giving them a strong ultimatum that they'd better not get out of line in that neighborhood."

Heated words

The disorderly conduct citations were actually issued several weeks ago, and the only thing the parties agree on from that night is that Heaton's family was in a car driving past the Galbraith home and that Heaton was the one to call the police.

Maybe the Galbraiths came charging to the road yelling, "Keep your (expletive) retarded kid at home!" as Heaton alleges. Maybe it was Heaton who started it, pulling the car over and yelling, "My kid can do what he wants! Just leave him alone!" along with expertly used obscenities.

It depends on whom you believe. Heaton acknowledged that she exchanged strong profanities with the couple, and the Galbraiths said Kallie did lose her temper and that her husband had to steer her away from the confrontation.

Originally the hearing in the case was set Monday, but it's been moved back. The hearing could prove to be dramatic. Galbraith said he's gathering as many neighbors as he can to back up his criticisms of Mrs. Heaton, and Sundquist said he's likely to compile quite a list.

"I think everybody in the neighborhood will go, because they don't need that kind of neighbor," he said. "That says it all right there."

But that's a month away, and the disorderly conduct scene -- however it went down -- was a far cry from the atmosphere Friday night.

At the Heaton house, Colton and his sister played in the yard while the adults did chores outside and worked in the garden.

Next door, after a session of chopping wood for the winter, Lloyd Sundquist sat quietly with Barbara in their tidy backyard as sprinklers irrigated the front lawn.

At the Galbraith house, two of their children and their dog, Bear, bounced merrily on a trampoline while Darren and Kallie visited with a friend out front.

In other words, for a night -- because of fatigue, a healthy dose of reason or the temporary glare of a media spotlight -- they were all just neighbors.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.