bloodrayne
01-05-2005, 07:58 AM
Man Is Charged In Wife's Death
Seattle - Prosecutors say a Maple Valley man admitted to police that before he shot and killed his wife last week, he hit her so hard on her head and back with his hunting rifle that the butt of the stock "actually cracked and broke."
Prosecutors charged Wesley Avans yesterday with one count of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree assault.
Both charges are domestic violence-related.
According to a written statement from King County sheriff's Detective John Pavlovich, Avans, his wife, Colleen, and their 16-year-old daughter had been living in Maple Valley since last spring, when Wesley Avans moved north from Alabama and Tennessee.
Avans, 33, and his wife had been married three years, though it's unclear, Pavlovich wrote, whether Avans had been invited to join them.
Last Wednesday, Colleen woke her husband so he could keep an appointment she had made for him. He didn't want to go, and they argued.
Then, after Colleen was unable to leave for work because both of the couple's cars were out of gas -- and after Colleen called her mother, who was her colleague at a Bellevue leasing company, to tell her of the situation -- Avans turned to violence.
Avans beat her, then Colleen fled to the bathroom, Pavlovich wrote. Avans shot at her once through the door, striking their daughter in the hand.
"The bathroom door then opened," Pavlovich wrote. "The military-trained (Avans) was standing in the doorway holding the hunting rifle at waist level when he fired the shot directly into his wife."
Avans admitted his guilt during a police interview, they say.
Prosecutors contend in court papers that Avans has been arrested in four states on charges ranging from drunken driving and burglary to drug possession and eluding police.
Avans faces from 32 to 40 years in prison if convicted. He is being held on $1.25 million bail pending his Jan. 10 arraignment at the Regional Justice Center in Kent.
Seattle - Prosecutors say a Maple Valley man admitted to police that before he shot and killed his wife last week, he hit her so hard on her head and back with his hunting rifle that the butt of the stock "actually cracked and broke."
Prosecutors charged Wesley Avans yesterday with one count of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree assault.
Both charges are domestic violence-related.
According to a written statement from King County sheriff's Detective John Pavlovich, Avans, his wife, Colleen, and their 16-year-old daughter had been living in Maple Valley since last spring, when Wesley Avans moved north from Alabama and Tennessee.
Avans, 33, and his wife had been married three years, though it's unclear, Pavlovich wrote, whether Avans had been invited to join them.
Last Wednesday, Colleen woke her husband so he could keep an appointment she had made for him. He didn't want to go, and they argued.
Then, after Colleen was unable to leave for work because both of the couple's cars were out of gas -- and after Colleen called her mother, who was her colleague at a Bellevue leasing company, to tell her of the situation -- Avans turned to violence.
Avans beat her, then Colleen fled to the bathroom, Pavlovich wrote. Avans shot at her once through the door, striking their daughter in the hand.
"The bathroom door then opened," Pavlovich wrote. "The military-trained (Avans) was standing in the doorway holding the hunting rifle at waist level when he fired the shot directly into his wife."
Avans admitted his guilt during a police interview, they say.
Prosecutors contend in court papers that Avans has been arrested in four states on charges ranging from drunken driving and burglary to drug possession and eluding police.
Avans faces from 32 to 40 years in prison if convicted. He is being held on $1.25 million bail pending his Jan. 10 arraignment at the Regional Justice Center in Kent.