Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 29, 1993 TAG: 9309290245
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A sobbing Nancy Lee Campbell, 46, of Vinton said she was the only means of support for her disabled father.
"My father needs me bad," Campbell said. "He doesn't have nobody."
Circuit Judge G.O. Clemens said he saw no reason to reduce a 2 1/2-year prison term set by a jury that found Campbell guilty of intentionally killing Donald "Bugs" Campbell.
At a two-day trial in June, Campbell wavered between two different accounts of the Christmas Eve shooting that left her husband bleeding to death in the driveway of their rented home on Eastland Road Southeast.
Campbell testified that she acted in self-defense as her husband - drunk and threatening to kill her - ran toward her with a sledgehammer raised above his head.
When confronted with medical testimony that Donald Campbell had been shot in the back, Campbell conceded that she shot in retribution for numerous beatings she had suffered during the couple's five-year marriage.
"I just wanted him to feel the pain that I had felt all those years of being beat on," she testified.
The jury apparently took her plight into account when it recommended a sentence well below the 10-year maximum for voluntary manslaughter. She is expected to serve about six months in the Roanoke County Jail.
A brother of the victim, who attended Tuesday's hearing, said he thought Nancy Campbell got off easy.
"She should have gotten life. She took his life," said Walter Campbell, 60.
Keywords:
ROMUR
by CNB