Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 28, 1994 TAG: 9407280092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Abbott's attorney acknowledges that his client shot Allen, but says Abbott acted in self-defense.
"If the evidence is what I think it will be, then I think the commonwealth will find the shooting is justified," said Tom Blaylock, Abbott's attorney.
Darlene Allen, Aubrey Allen's widow, says her husband's killing was a premeditated attack motivated by years of feuding between Abbott and Allen. She said Abbott was also prejudiced against her husband because he was infected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS.
She will meet with Updike today. It will be her second meeting with the prosecutor since her husband's death, and she hopes to find out if Abbott will be charged.
"I do not understand," she said. "If someone robs a convenience store, there's an automatic arrest. Paul Abbott has killed my husband, and he was let go."
In their first meeting, Updike did not indicate whether Abbott would be charged or when he would make a decision, Darlene Allen said.
She said Updike would not answer any questions about the killing, including her contention that a gun may have been placed in her husband's hand to make the killing appear to be in self-defense.
"What has to be determined is whether the shooting was an unlawful homicide or an excusable or justifiable act of self-defense,'' Updike said.
"We're making every effort to make that decision as quickly as we can ... [but] we don't treat the decision of whether or not to bring charges in a murder case lightly in Bedford County."
Updike said he was waiting for results from forensic tests of evidence recovered from the scene of the killing.
Allen, 42, was killed June 5 about 9:20 p.m. outside Abbott's trailer home in Scenic Acres, a subdivision near Virginia 24.
On the day of the killing, Darlene Allen said Abbott yelled at her as she was driving a Go Kart with her children near Abbott's house. When she returned home, she said, her husband took the Go Kart and rode up to Abbott's house to have words with him.
Then, Darlene Allen said, Abbott attacked her husband with a stick. She has pictures showing Aubrey Allen's body in the funeral home. The pictures show a yellowish-red discoloration of the right side of Allen's neck, which she says was caused by Abbott's hitting Aubrey Allen.
Dr. David Oxley, the state medical examiner who performed the autopsy, said his examination of Allen showed no such marks or bruises.
"Paul Abbott knew how to pull Aubrey's chain, and he done it," Darlene Allen said. "He knew by hitting Aubrey, he would make Aubrey snap."
At the time of the killing, Allen and Abbott were under court order to have no contact with each other. Allen, an ex-convict who served time for attempted murder, was also not supposed to possess or use firearms.
After Abbott hit Aubrey Allen with the stick, Darlene Allen said, her husband took one of her guns and said he was going back to Abbott's.
Darlene Allen said she tried to stop her husband but failed. She said she followed in her car, trying to get him to pull over as he drove the Go Kart.
"When we reached Abbott's place, his trailer immediately blackened out except for two floodlights at the end of his house," she said.
Aubrey Allen stood up, straddling the Go Kart. Darlene Allen said her husband left the gun in the Go Kart below him.
"Aubrey was waving his hands, saying, `Come on, Paul. Come on, [expletive],' and Paul jumped out and fired. Aubrey started reaching down, and Paul fired again."
She said she heard and saw two shots about three to four seconds apart. Then, she said, "I got the hell out of there. I knew [Aubrey] had been hit, but I did not know he was dead. I could not accept it."
Her husband was lying near the Go Kart when she left, she said. She returned home and called the sheriff's department and a friend, Donald Spears.
Spears said he drove up to Abbott's house and saw Abbott holding a shotgun. Spears said Abbott told him to "get the hell out, too."
After sheriff's deputies had arrived, Darlene Allen drove back to the scene of the shooting. She said her husband was lying on his back about 30 to 50 yards away from the road in an empty field across from Abbott's home.
Friends of Abbott say they saw police pry a gun from Allen's hand more than six hours after the shooting.
Pete Cheney, a Scenic Acres resident, said the gun in Allen's hand was a TEC-9 automatic assault weapon. "I saw them remove the gun. ... It had cooler vents on the barrel; it was a mean-looking gun."
Cheney said Abbott told him that Allen pulled the gun on him first. Abbott "had no choice," Cheney said.
Virginia Pace, also of Scenic Acres, said, "It was some kind of machine gun. I don't know what it was. It had a big clip in it."
Linda Sanders described a "long, black gun" and said she saw it pulled from Allen's right hand.
Sanders and Pace were among the individuals under court order to have no contact with Aubrey Allen.
Darlene Allen said she had gone to the sheriff's department for questioning and never got close enough to her husband's body to see if he was holding a gun. If he was, she thinks it was placed there. She also questions how his body got to the field.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB