By David Eck
Enquirer contributor

LEBANON - In the five months leading up to the 1995 fatal shooting of his wife, Vickie, Springboro Police Officer Thomas James "Jim" Barton paid a Middletown man to stage a burglary at the Bartons' Wayne Township home, prosecutors said in a court filing.

Barton, a former long-time Springboro lieutenant, also provided William Lee Phelps with two loaded firearms and instructed Phelps to shoot the guns over the head of Vickie Barton, according to the court documents.

However, on April 11, 1995, Phelps and an unknown accomplice entered the Bartons' home and Phelps, the accomplice or both shot Vickie Barton in the head three times, prosecutors said in the filing.

Prosecutors would not say Thursday how much cash Barton paid Phelps, who later killed himself.

The documents were filed this month in connection with the criminal case against Jim Barton.

Last month, a Warren County grand jury indicted Jim Barton on two counts of complicity to involuntary manslaughter, two counts of complicity to aggravated burglary and a count of complicity to burglary in connection with his wife's slaying.

Barton has pleaded not guilty to the charges and remains free on $55,000 bond. A hearing on motions is scheduled for August.

Deputies in 1998 received a tip that Phelps may have been connected with the slaying. In January 2004, investigators said they found proof that Phelps had been at the crime scene the day Vickie Barton was killed.

On April 11, 1995, Jim Barton called Warren County dispatch 911 and reported finding his 40-year-old wife dead in their Franklin Township farmhouse. Vickie Barton, a nurse, had been shot.

Phelps committed suicide four months after the murder.