Tuesday, October 05, 1999
Woman's death murder, not suicide, court told
Husband depicted as controlling
BY DAN HORN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Joseph Griffin says he walked into his bedroom one afternoon last year and saw his wife pick up a revolver and put it to her head.
She smiled at him, he says, and then she pulled the trigger.
But as Mr. Griffin's murder trial began Monday, prosecutors described his story as “ludicrous.”
They told jurors that Mr. Griffin was an obsessive and abusive husband who ended an argument with the .38-caliber revolver.
“He placed it behind her ear and he put that bullet in her brain,” said assistant prosecutor Mark Piepmeier. “That's not suicide. That's aggravated murder.”
The case began Sept. 2 when Mr. Griffin made a frantic 911 call claiming that his wife, Pamela, had shot herself in their trailer home in Whitewater Township.
His attorney, Robert Ranz, said Mr. Griffin later told police that he had loaded the revolver and left it in the bedroom before stepping out.
When he returned to the room, he said, Mr. Griffin watched as his wife “looked at him, smiled and pulled the trigger.”
Mr. Ranz described Mrs. Griffin, 30, as an unstable, unhappy woman who had threated suicide before. Once, he said, she read a disturbing poem to her 11-year-old daughter. He said the last line of the poem — “I'd rather be dead” — caused the girl to have nightmares.
Mr. Piepmeier said the source of Mrs. Griffin's unhappiness was her husband.
He said the 41-year-old Mr. Griffin, who did not work because of an injury, was a jealous husband who required his wife to call him when she arrived at work and when she was leaving.
Sometimes, Mr. Piepmeier said, Mr. Griffin would accompany his wife to her job as an aide at a nursing home so he could keep an eye on her.
He said Mr. Griffin was caught one day going through time cards to check up on his wife.
“Pamela Griffin was a woman trapped in a very abusive relationship,” Mr. Piepmeier said. “It was a relationship she hated being in, but she was afraid to exit.”
He said she stayed only because she was afraid to leave her two children alone with Mr. Griffin.
He said forensic evidence points to Mr. Griffin as the killer, citing blood spatters on his shirt.
Mr. Ranz, however, said the shirt was stained when Mr. Griffin tried to revive his wife.
He also noted that gunpowder residue tests, which show if someone has fired a gun, came back positive for Mrs. Griffin but negative for her husband.
“Joseph Griffin didn't have a speck on him,” Mr. Ranz said.
The trial resumes today before Judge John O'Connor in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court.
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Woman's death murder, not suicide, court told
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