Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 16, 1993 TAG: 9311160224
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
Monday, a county grand jury declined to indict Stella M. Jones Pagan on charges of murder and use of a firearm in the death of Walter Herman Pagan, 79.
Walter Pagan died during surgery July 14 in Pulaski Community Hospital. He was taken there after Stella Pagan reported she had shot her husband at their rural Caseknife Road home.
She told authorities she shot her husband because she feared for her life.
Grand juries normally hear testimony only from prosecution witnesses when deciding if there is enough evidence to warrant indictment.
In an unusual move, Pagan was allowed to testify to the grand jury. Her defense lawyers said Everett Shockley, commonwealth's attorney, agreed to their request that she be allowed to speak to the five-member panel.
"I've never done that in 14 years," Shockley said.
Shockley said in this case, emotions ran high because of the woman's age and physical condition.
Shockley said he told the grand jurors it was their decision - once they heard from Pulaski County investigators - whether they wanted to hear from Stella Pagan.
Eleven family members sat waiting for Pagan during the several minutes she spoke privately with the grand jury. Pagan and her family left before the afternoon's indictments were returned, with the two charges against her marked "not a true bill."
Technically, Shockley could bring the charges again to another grand jury. But he said, "I don't anticipate any future litigation in this case."
According to testimony at a September preliminary hearing, Pagan told Pulaski County authorities she was afraid for her own life, because her husband had verbally and physically assaulted her the day of the shooting.
At the preliminary hearing, Bob Ingram, Pagan's lawyer, said "no one grieved more" over Walter Pagan's death than his widow. But her actions became necessary when her husband "suddenly and frightfully went over the edge," Ingram said.
Stella Pagan felt compelled to shoot her husband as he came toward her throwing porch chairs after earlier hitting her in the face and biting her finger, Ingram said.
Ingram said the man, over a three-day period shortly after having minor surgery, became a "grotesque image of his former self" that in "no way resembled the husband she knew and loved."
Doug Schroder, then-assistant commonwealth's attorney, had argued that a self-defense argument was questionable. Schroder said several of the shots struck Walter Pagan in the back, and that he was likely throwing the chairs to ward off his wife when he saw her standing at the screen door with a gun.
Sgt. Mike Alderman of the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office testified that Stella Pagan told him she was in her bedroom when her husband walked in and assaulted her. She tried talking with him in the kitchen, but her husband was upset about being kept awake a few nights earlier by a visitor, Alderman said the woman told him.
Stella Pagan said she "couldn't take it anymore" and left to walk outside the house. Her husband followed. She went back into the house, latching a screen door. Fearing that he was going to retrieve a gun from his truck to make good on an earlier threat to kill her, Stella Pagan got her .22-caliber pistol from under her mattress and returned to the front door, which her husband was approaching, Alderman recounted.
She said her husband threw a chair before she fired a shot. Alderman testified that Stella Pagan said she thought she shot her husband three times.
"I didn't want to kill him, I just wanted to keep him off of me," Alderman said Pagan told him during an interview.
by CNB