A brawl between two neighbors at an upscale Midtown condominium complex over a dog swimming in the property's pool left one man dead and another awaiting his fate today on murder charges.

After one too many complaints about his yellow Labrador, Grace, software consultant Craig S. Tomko, 38, snapped, head-butting and holding the neighbor, Meredith "Mac" McNair, 54, under water until he suffered a heart attack on July 4, 2006, Fulton County prosecutor Pete Johnson told jurors Thursday during closing arguments.

Fulton County Sheriff's Office

Craig S. Tomko

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Jurors began deliberating that afternoon and could reach a verdict Friday.

Tomko, an Ohio native, testified this week, telling jurors he acted in self-defense against his burly dog-hating neighbor. He said he spent the Independence Day holiday playing golf, attending a barbecue and having a couple of beers with friends at McCrae's tavern in Midtown.

Tomko returned to his Piedmont Road place at the Dakota Condominiums and decided to let his dog have a swim in the fifth-floor pool. Tomko was tossing his pooch a tennis ball when he said McNair, a local handyman, stormed out to the pool around midnight and began yelling about the no-pet pool rule.

The angry neighbor dunked the dog's head under water and then tried to drown Tomko, the defendant testified. McNair clamped his teeth around Tomko's finger, so Tomko headbutted him, according to the defense.

After the fight, Tomko saw McNair floating in the pool, panicked and ran, said the defendant's attorney, Drew Findling.

Findling said McNair was the aggressor and had a history of outbursts.

A 58-year-old psychologist who lived near the victim testified this week that McNair attacked her Border Collie mix for barking and followed her to her car, calling her an expletive.

"She was so in fear of him she sold her condo and moved to the other end of the complex," Findling said.

A 40-year-old male nurse testified that the victim kicked the nurse's arthritic and diabetic Schnauzer because the dog sniffed his foot in the condominium's elevator.

Another condo resident testified that she saw the victim spray a disabling chemical at a homeless man's face.

And, three weeks before McNair's death, McNair kicked Tomko's dog and muttered something vulgar about the defendant and his then-wife, Findling said. Tomko kept his cool and filed a police report against McNair, his attorney said.

Prosecutors told jurors that the defendant attacked the victim because he had grown weary of the neighbor's complaints, which sometimes resulted in condo association fines. McNair had previously complained when Grace walked around unleashed, barked in the courtyard and urinated in the elevator.

Tomko also was on edge because of marital problems that later ended in divorce, the prosecution said.

"He was kind of volatile and high-strung at that time," Johnson said.

Tomko, who has been free on bond, has since moved to Florida.