Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 17, 1993 TAG: 9306170505
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: BY DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER LENGTH: Medium
A Roanoke County Circuit Court jury set a 2 1/2-year sentence for Nancy Lee Campbell, who placed her right hand over her mouth and sobbed as the verdict was read.
In setting a sentence well below the maximum 10-year penalty for manslaughter, the jurors apparently took into account the five years of physical abuse Campbell had suffered at the hands of her husband, Donald "Bugs" Campbell. The jury, composed of eight women and four men, deliberated for more than six hours and reached the verdict at 12:25 a.m. today.
Nancy Campbell had testified earlier Wednesday that she never meant to kill her husband when she shot him with a hunting rifle in the driveway of the couple's home on Eastland Road Southeast.
"I just wanted him to feel the pain that I had felt all those years of being beat on," Campbell told jurors during the second day of her murder trial in Roanoke County Circuit Court.
Campbell, 46, said she fired the rifle in self-defense as her husband rushed at her with a sledgehammer poised above his head.
But Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Bill Broadhurst told the jury that the shooting could not have happened that way, because Donald Campbell was shot in the back.
Broadhurst argued that Nancy Campbell had no right to shoot her husband in those circumstances, regardless of how many times he may have abused her in the past.
"Ms. Campbell killed her husband as he was walking away," he said. "I submit to you that she's guilty of murder, or at least manslaughter."
Roanoke County Police initially charged Nancy Campbell with involuntary manslaughter after the Dec. 24 shooting.
The charge was upgraded to first-degree murder after an autopsy showed that Donald Campbell, 45, had been shot in the back.
Virginia law does not provide for a "battered-woman syndrome" defense for women charged with killing their husbands.
But defense attorney Charlie Phillips endeavored to portray Donald Campbell as a man who got what he deserved.
"He was mean, meaner than a snake," Phillips said in his closing statement, "and this woman should not serve time because of his meanness."
For more than an hour Wednesday, jurors sat riveted as Nancy Campbell - a stout woman who sobbed pitifully on the witness stand - described the beatings she suffered for five years and tried to explain why she did not leave her abusive husband.
"He picked up this bat and he swung it and hit me."
"I loved that man. When he was sober, he would do anything for me."
"He had boots on, and he kicked me from my head to my waist."
"The longest he did not drink was eight months, but he made up for it when he did."
"He was banging my head against the floor. I didn't know how long I was there."
"I didn't want to be without him, because I loved him."
One woman on the jury found the testimony so painful that she bowed her head and placed her hands over her eyes as if trying to avoid an unpleasant scene in a movie.
Under cross-examination, Broadhurst challenged Campbell's assertion that she killed her husband in self-defense.
Broadhurst wanted to know how she could have shot him in the back if she pulled the trigger as he came toward her with a sledgehammer.
"He would pretty much have to be the quickest man in the world to jump [around] in front of that bullet by the time you fired the gun, right?" he asked Campbell.
In his closing statement, Broadhurst told jurors that a more logical explanation was the one that Campbell gave to detectives a few days after the shooting - that she fired the gun as he walked away from her.
"The action comports with someone who just got tired of this man," Broadhurst said. "She had no right to do that."
by CNB