THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 17, 1994 TAG: 9412170225
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANGELITA PLEMMER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
A roar erupted inside Janet McCombs' head. A bullet had smashed through the tip of her nose, out the side, burst through the center of her right eye and exploded out of her temple.
She had been shot at point-blank range by David James Owens, her former lover, who now paced back and forth, a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson gripped tightly in his hand.
Her only hope, McCombs told herself, was to play dead. Then he wouldn't fire again, she reasoned.
Her plan worked. While Owens was distracted, she dove out of a nearby bedroom window. Then she sprang over a chain-link fence and went looking for someone to hide her so Owens wouldn't finish her off.
Her face a bloodied mess, she punched her fist through a glass pane, unlocked the storm door and entered a house, only to come face to face with a frightened homeowner with a shotgun.
``I'm yelling `Don't shoot! Don't shoot!,' '' McCombs said. ``I didn't want to hurt them. . . . I thought maybe I have a chance.''
During a tense and emotional hearing Friday, Owens, 58, the father of McCombs' 5-year-old son, was convicted and sentenced in Circuit Court to nine years for the Sept. 14 shooting. Judge Norman Olitsky found Owens guilty of malicious wounding and using a firearm in a felony. McCombs, a 31-year-old 7-Eleven clerk, lost her right eye to the gunshot wound.
``I look in the mirror sometimes and I start to cry,'' McCombs testified. ``And other times, I'm thankful that I'm still alive.''
During an Oct. 31 hearing, McCombs had told the story of the attack. Olitsky deferred ruling until Friday, while a presentence report on Owens was prepared, detailing his criminal history and family background.
During Friday's hearing, prosecuting and defense attorneys exchanged heated arguments and biting remarks, accusing one another of distorting the facts and presenting a poor case.
On several occasions, the judge played referee, asking the prosecutor not to shout in the courtroom and asking the defense attorney not to interrupt the witness during her testimony.
Prosecutor David Dayton asked for the maximum sentence for both charges - which would have totaled 23 years - because ``Ms. McCombs was shot in the face at close range.''
``He knew she had been shot. . . . He showed joy, he showed satisfaction that he had accomplished his intentions,'' Dayton said.
Dayton told how McCombs, bleeding from the wounds, was a captive in the bedroom for 20 minutes before she was able to escape. Dayton also described how, after the shooting, Owens was spotted by police a few blocks away from where McCombs' children and husband lived.
Owens' attorney, Sterling Weaver, said the shooting was an accident, that it happened as the two struggled for the gun when Owens, who had been drinking, talked of suicide.
Owens met McCombs when he was 52 and she was 25. They were both involved in failing marriages. They started the relationship as friends and became lovers. McCombs became pregnant and the two moved in together.
But their on-again, off-again relationship was becoming too rocky, and McCombs went back to her husband.
On the evening that McCombs returned to their old apartment to gather the rest of her belongings, she and Owens had a confrontation.
Owens said he was despondent and felt hopeless. He testified that, after the gun went off, he had no idea that McCombs had been shot.
But McCombs said the shooting was intentional and that he knew she had been injured.
She said in an interview before the hearing, ``There was actually a moment when I said, `Is this going to be it? Is this when I'm going to lie down and die?' ''
Now McCombs must live without her right eye. It has been replaced by a custom-made, lifelike silicone eye, with fine, red thread woven throughout to simulate veins.
``There's times when I can laugh and joke about it,'' McCombs said before the hearing. ``And then I look in the mirror and I see only one side's looking and the other side is not, and I start to cry.
``Sometimes, I just feel like giving up . . . The courts, judges and the law, it's just a big joke now.
``But I just want him to know, I'm not afraid of him.'' ILLUSTRATION: LAWRENCE JACKSON/Staff
David J. Owens, 58, was sentenced to nine years in prison Friday for
shooting Janet McCombs in the face last September in Portsmouth. ``I
look in the mirror sometimes and I start to cry,'' McCombs
testified.
KEYWORDS: MALICIOUS WOUNDING SHOOTING CONVICTION SENTENCING by CNB