THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 19, 1995 TAG: 9507190450
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CURRITUCK LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
A Currituck County jury on Tuesday acquitted a Powells Point woman of manslaughter, believing she shot her husband to death last winter in self-defense.
Wanda Clara Whitmore, 41, had been charged with killing her husband of 10 years, Eddie James Whitmore Jr., after he beat her and threatened to harm their 6-year-old son and her grandmother, who is 82.
The jury of 10 women and two men deliberated less than an hour. After the judgment was read in Currituck County Superior Court, Wanda Whitmore clasped her hands to her face and cried.
``Wanda's relieved. She's just relieved,'' her attorney, Donna Forbes of Elizabeth City, said after the two-day trial was over.
Several jurors said afterward that they never doubted Whitmore killed her husband in self-defense on Feb. 20 at their home on U.S. 158.
``We all had a feeling that if he hadn't come in and done what he'd done at that time, then there wouldn't have been an incident,'' said jury foreman Michael Miller.
Testimony indicated Whitmore became violent when he drank alcohol and had previously abused his wife, who twice had him arrested for assault.
The couple and their son moved to Currituck County from Baltimore about three years ago and were living with Wanda Whitmore's grandmother, who raised Wanda and was sometimes referred to as her ``momma.''
Whitmore testified Tuesday that her husband acted strangely on the night of the shooting. Although he usually became mean and abusive when he drank heavily, that evening he was even more hostile and aggressive.
``He had on steel-toed shoes, and he just started kicking me in the face. . And he kept saying, `I'm gonna kill you.' ''
As the violence escalated, the couple's son called 911. At one point, Whitmore picked up the boy and threw him against a window. He also threatened to hurt his wife's grandmother.
While police were on the way, Wanda Whitmore got a gun from a bedroom dresser drawer and crawled back to the living room, unable to walk because of a fractured knee.
A few minutes later she pulled out the concealed pistol and shot her husband once in the chest and again in the stomach. He walked to a hallway and collapsed.
A state medical examiner said Tuesday Eddie Whitmore had a blood-alcohol level of 0.30. Motorists are legally intoxicated with blood-alcohol levels of 0.08 or greater.
Whitmore, who admitted she had drunk beer and smoked crack cocaine earlier that day, said she got the gun to scare her husband and didn't intend to shoot him.
State prosecutor Phillip Hayes, however, argued that Whitmore killed her husband to end the abuse.
``She'd decided on this occasion that she couldn't take it anymore. It'd gone on and on,'' Hayes said during closing statements.
``She did mean to shoot him. Maybe she didn't intend to kill - that's murder. But she did intend to shoot him,'' he said.
Whitmore, who has been suspended from her job at a Food Lion supermarket, hopes to return to work, Forbes said.
KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING TRIAL VERDICT by CNB