(FL) Woman kills abusive husband in self-defense 03-20-05
Date: Mar 20, 2005 7:23 PM
Ocala.com | Star-Banner | Ocala, Fla.
Address:http://www.ocala.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050320/NEWS/203200386/1001/news01
Published Mar. 20, 2005

Police: Shooting was possibly self-defense
Officers were called to family’s house before
By MABEL PEREZ, STAFF WRITER

SILVER SPRINGS SHORES – A 38-year-old man was shot and killed late
Friday after his wife reportedly shot him to protect herself.

Timothy Shane Roberts, 38, was shot once in the chest by his wife Paula
Kathryn Roberts, 35, during a physical altercation, said Marion County
Sheriff’s Office officials. Paramedics were dispatched to the home, 22
Hemlock Terrace Drive, at 10:09 p.m.

When deputies arrived, they found the man’s wife kneeling next to him.

“The argument pretty much started with the daughter,” said Sue Livoti,
sheriff’s office public information officer. When the man’s wife got
involved, the physical fight turned deadly.

The physical altercation began early Friday, according to Paula Roberts’
account to police.

The couple spent Friday evening with their three children at the Ocala
Shrine Club Carnival just a couple of miles away from their home.
After they left, Timothy Roberts began to argue with his 16-year-old
daughter, Kathryn.

Once at the home, he is said to have begun hitting his daughter. After
his wife got involved, he began to attack her.

“The mother went into the bedroom and told him if he hit her again she
would shoot him,” Livoti said. “And he supposedly told her, ‘You don’t
have the nerve.’

“He moved as if to strike her again and she fired one time, hitting him
in the chest. The children ran to a neighbor’s house and called 911,”
Livoti said in an earlier written press release.

Paula Roberts has not been charged in the homicide.

Family members told investigators that domestic violence was prevalent
in the household.

“The father was very abusive,” said Lt. Tommy Bibb at the scene. “There
appears to be a long history of abuse with the kids and the wife . . .
They came home tonight and the father was beating on the kids and the
wife.”

The family has lived in Marion County for four years. Records indicate
that police have been called to the residence on a few occasions.
However, the husband has never been arrested for any domestic violence
related incidents.
County court records show that Paula Roberts applied for several
retraining orders against two other men, one in June 2003 and another in
2004.

At midnight Friday, as evidence technicians photographed the scene, Bibb
described the inside of the home as being “completely destroyed.”

The case was investigated as a homicide, but Bibb said it looks as if
the shooting was in self-defense.

An autopsy was scheduled for the husband on Saturday. The State
Attorney’s Office is expected to review the case this week.

The husband’s driver’s license, indicated the family had lived in
Douglasville, Ga.