The Franklin woman accused of killing her landlord Tuesday has a history of angry property disputes, court records show. Susan Disharoon, 48, was evicted from another building in Franklin in 2004 and landed in court with a Claremont landlord last year.

In a letter to the Franklin District Court this month, Disharoon wrote that she couldn't make her court-ordered $25 monthly payment to a previous landlord because "I have no money and still have not obtained employment."

For five years, Disharoon was a model tenant, said former landlord Pauline Stavro of Franklin, helping with the garden and generally keeping to herself. But Stavro said that when she and her husband discovered that Disharoon had been smoking in the Wyatt Court building and moved to evict her, something seemed to snap.

"I think she did have, like, a split personality. As long as you didn't cross her, it was fine," said Stavro, who fought lengthy battles with Disharoon in court. "I was afraid and my tenant upstairs was afraid because we had the funniest feeling that she was going to come back and do something. It was just scary."

Syed A. "Ali" Hussain, 36, was killed by three gunshot wounds Tuesday night, according to a release from the attorney general's office yesterday. He was an immigrant from Pakistan who owned three businesses, including the Twin River Market on Central Street in Franklin where he was shot.

Disharoon has been charged with second-degree murder and is being held without bail at the Merrimack County Jail.

Disharoon shot Hussain around 9:40 p.m. Tuesday and then holed up in her apartment with the shotgun, threatening to kill police and herself, authorities said. State police negotiators talked to her through a bullhorn for hours, and numerous rounds of pepper spray were shot into the apartment. She surrendered around 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, the authorities said.

Friends said that Hussain allowed Disharoon to live in the apartment above the store at reduced rent after she ran into problems with her former landlord. Hussain and his brother, who also owns convenience stores, met Disharoon when she was working as a distributor for Nestle, arranging candy racks at area stores.

Before she moved into the Franklin apartment, Disharoon "had no place to live," according to Syed Saqlain, the victim's cousin.

"They rented to her for a low rent. They told her, 'We're not going to charge heat or anything,'" said Saqlain, who owns a convenience store in Pittsfield. "I don't know what she got in her mind. I wish I could ask 'Why did you do that?'"

There were signs of trouble in Disharoon's life. She lost her license after being convicted of driving while intoxicated in February, court records show. She also lost her job with Nestle, according to the victim's brother, Syed Z. Hussain.

But the only problem between Disharoon and Hussain that neighbors knew about was over parking, and Hussain was trying to resolve it. After losing her driver's license, Disharoon left her car parked in front of the Central Street store, leaving only two spaces for his customers, neighbors said.

Peter Heath, who lives across the street from the store and went there nightly, said that Hussain once asked him if Disharoon could move her car into his lot.

"I believe he was willing to pay me himself, to make sure she had a place to put her car so it wasn't interfering with business," Heath said.

For the past week or so, Heath said, neighbors had noticed Disharoon acting strangely, blasting classical music late at night or shouting verses from the Bible to passers-by on the street. But there was nothing to indicate why she might have shot him, they said.

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