Florida woman is facing serious charges after allegedly holding two teenage boys at gunpoint for fishing near her home—only to find out the land wasn’t even hers.
Donna Elkins, 59, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and false imprisonment after she called 911 on March 28 to report the boys for trespassing in Melbourne, Florida. But according to investigators, the teens weren’t actually on her property at all.
According to an arrest affidavit, Elkins told dispatchers that she caught the boys fishing in her backyard, claiming she “petrified them” and “stopped them” by forcing them to the ground.
The 13- and 15-year-old victims later told deputies that Elkins approached them while they were fishing at a pond behind her home, pointed a long black pellet gun at them, and ordered them not to move.
“She said she was going to blow our brains out and that if we didn’t listen to her, she would shoot—she was going to blow our heads off,” 15-year-old Brayden recalled.
A cellphone video captured by one of the boys shows Elkins making chilling threats, saying, “Cause if someone goes in your backyard, you can blow their f—ing heads off. I have a right to protect my property and my house.”
The terrified boys stayed on the ground for five minutes until Elkins’ husband intervened and took the gun from her, according to authorities. The boys were unharmed but said they genuinely feared for their lives.
“In my head, it was a real gun,” Brayden said. “That she was going to shoot us and kill us… The fact that she was saying she was going to blow our heads off—you can’t do that with a pellet gun. I really thought it was real.”
Investigators later determined that the boys were not trespassing on Elkins’ property but on a peninsula about 30 feet away, owned by a community development district.
Elkins later apologized but defended her reaction, saying she was scared because of previous trespassing incidents.
“I feel horrible, but I was freaked out,” Elkins told Florida Today. “We’ve had homeless people back here. And we do have a sign out that says no fishing. I’m extremely sorry, but I wouldn’t be walking in anybody’s backyard in today’s world.”
She was released from the Brevard County Jail on a $25,000 bond and is expected to appear in court later this month.
“What she did was wrong,” Brayden said.
