Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 29, 1994 TAG: 9407290088
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER NOTE: below
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Linda Sanders, a friend of Abbott's who lives behind the Allens, said Abbott told her he went to Allen's house to make peace. At the time of the killing, both men were under court order not to have contact with each other because of their longstanding feud.
Debbie Bobbitt, the Allens' next-door neighbor, also is a friend of Abbott. She said Abbott told Allen, "You're dying with AIDS and I'm sick. My nerves are bad. Let's put the past in the past and call a truce."
Sanders and Bobbitt both said Abbott told them Allen refused his apology and threatened the lives of everyone in the subdivision.
Allen "said he was going to take us with him before he died," Bobbitt said.
Darlene Allen, Allen's widow, tells a different story. She says Abbott told her husband that "he was becoming a Christian and turning to the Lord and he wanted to forgive Aubrey."
She said her husband replied, "For what? If you really are a Christian, you better be praying for yourself and all these other people for lying about me."
A Bedford County gun dealer says that six months before the shooting, Allen inquired about TEC-9 semiautomatic rifles. As an ex-convict, Allen was prohibited by law from possessing or purchasing firearms.
The TEC-9 can fire 30 rounds or more without reloading and is similar in appearance to a Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifle.
John Laurence Arnold, the gun dealer, said Allen phoned him in December about buying an SKS, an inexpensive Chinese-made semiautomatic rifle.
Arnold said Allen asked if he could buy the gun without paperwork. He told Allen that he couldn't. As a licensed gun dealer, Arnold is required by federal law to keep records of purchases and to make background checks on would-be gun buyers.
On Dec. 2, Aubrey and Darlene Allen visited Arnold, and Darlene bought the SKS. She later bought 1,200 rounds of ammunition.
Arnold said the Allens said she was buying the gun and ammunition for herself because she was a part-time police officer and needed target practice.
Darlene Allen said Thursday that she never was a police officer and never said that to Arnold.
While Aubrey Allen was at the gun shop, he talked about how he was trained to kill in Vietnam, Arnold said. "He bragged about how easy it is to kill somebody. He said, `I could snap somebody's neck if I wanted.'"
Arnold said he sympathized with neighbors in Scenic Acres who described Allen as a paranoid, dangerous man who made death threats.
The gun dealer also said Aubrey Allen inquired about a TEC-9. Arnold said the guns "look intimidating" and he doesn't sell them.
Friends of Abbott say they saw a TEC-9 removed from Allen's hand by sheriff's deputies hours after the shooting.
Darlene Allen said her husband took her TEC-9 with him the night Abbott killed him, but never threatened Abbott with it. She disputes that Abbott's friends saw a gun in her husband's hand. If deputies did remove a gun, she thinks it was placed there.
She also thinks Paul Abbott and one of his friends moved Aubrey Allen's body after he died to make the shooting appear to be self-defense.
When Aubrey Allen was shot, he was standing over his Go Kart in the road in front of Abbott's house, his widow says. Sheriff's deputies later found Allen lying on his back about 30 to 50 yards away from the Go Kart in an empty field adjacent to Abbott's house.
The autopsy report says Allen died at 9:18 p.m., the time of the confrontation with Abbott. The autopsy report also quotes Abbott as saying that Allen "ran across the field after he was shot."
Darlene Allen said she witnessed her husband's shooting and saw him start to fall near the Go Kart before she fled. She thinks he died immediately.
Allen had a wound in his chest that caused severe heart damage and another wound in his right arm that may or may not have been caused by the same shot, according to the autopsy.
Dr. David Oxley, the state medical examiner who performed the autopsy, said "death is rarely instant." He said Allen "wasn't going to be running any 100-yard dashes" after the shooting, but it was "possible" Allen could have moved himself from where Darlene Allen said he was shot to where his body was found.
by CNB