Worst Neighbor Ever: what happened to Dave, the man at the center of episode 1

Dave is David Scott of Mount Sterling, Kentucky — a deputy jailer at the Montgomery County jail, a husband, and a grandfather. On the morning of May 26, 2018, his neighbor Frances Zaayer walked into his home with a gun and shot him and his wife, Shawna. Shawna, shot in the face, survived. David was shot through the heart and died at the scene.

How it started

Frances Zaayer had history with the family. Taken in by Shawna's relatives as a teenager, she returned to Mount Sterling around 2016 during a divorce, bought the plot of land across the street, and — while her house was being built — moved in with Shawna and David as a guest.

Within weeks, her controlling behavior and an incident that left the couple's grandson in tears got her asked to leave.

Once she moved into her own house, the guest became a menace. Property-line disputes with Shawna's father. A complaint filed against a friend's salon. Near-daily police calls. After a physical altercation between the two women, a court placed restrictions on Shawna — including a distance requirement that effectively barred her from parts of her own property — and Frances spent the following months trying to bait her into violating it.

The racism behind it

The episode is direct about this: David Scott was Black, and Frances Zaayer's hostility toward him was openly racist. She had shown the couple a video of herself at a bigoted rally, hurled slurs at David and his children, and became convinced that his job at the county jail meant the police and courts were conspiring against her.

She wrote complaint letters to every authority she could think of, up to and including the president. David's response, consistently, was to ignore her and de-escalate. He did nothing to provoke what came.

What happened to Frances Zaayer

She holed up in her house after the shooting and was arrested the same day after neighbors called 911. Detectives said she never expressed remorse. In 2022, she took a plea deal — guilty to murder, second-degree assault, and wanton endangerment — and was sentenced to 35 years. She is incarcerated at the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women in Shelby County and becomes eligible for parole in 2038, when she will be in her seventies.

Why the episode resonates

• The escalation was documented — a year-plus paper trail of complaints, court orders, and police visits preceded the murder.
• The victim did everything "right" — David avoided confrontation at every turn, and it did not save him.
• The survivor tells it herself — Shawna Scott appears in the episode, recounting the feud and the morning she lost her husband.