Woman sentenced for killing husband

Associated Press

YAKIMA — A 65-year-old woman who suffered a brain-damaging injury in 1997 has been sentenced to 6 1/2years in prison for killing her husband.

Donna Abella of Wapato was sentenced Tuesday in Yakima County Superior Court, where she pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter.

Bill Abella, 69, was shot three times with two different guns last April 4 and his body dumped on a remote road on the Yakama Nation reservation.

Donna Abella said her husband wasn’t feeling well that day. He’d been bitten by a spider and was suffering from asthma. They argued.

"He chased after me, and I ran into the bathroom and picked up a .22 to scare him," she said in a statement. "We struggled over it, and it went off."

The shot hit him in the back. She said they headed for the car to take him to the hospital. Once they got to the car, they struggled over the .32-caliber pistol in her pocket, and the pistol fired twice, she said.

"He then got into my car, and I drove him to the hospital. By the time we got there, he was dead," she said.

But Abella apparently decided not to leave her husband at the hospital, and instead dumped his body on Signal Peak Road.

Donna Abella, who was originally charged with first-degree murder, suffered brain damage in a 1997 crash when she ran into three horses with her car. One of the horses went through the windshield and kicked her in the head, said defense lawyer Adam Moore.

The injuries changed her personality, he said.

"She was never the same. It profoundly affected her," Moore said.