Ex-chief held in wife's killing

BY MIKE LINN, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

FORDYCE - A former Fordyce police chief has been charged with capital murder
in the shooting death of his wife, with whom he taught Sunday School in this
south Arkansas city of 4, 344 residents.

Paul Douglas Gill, 54, is accused of killing Sandra Kaye Gill, 55, on March
22 at their Fordyce home and then trying to make it look like a suicide,
according to a probable-cause affidavit signed by police.

He appeared in Dallas County District Court on Friday morning in an orange
inmate jumpsuit, handcuffed and shackled.

As he entered the courtroom, family members and friends embraced him. One
woman burst into tears. Another sat silently in the front row, her head down
and a box of tissues at her feet.

Cleveland County District Judge Ronnie Phillips, who handled the hearing
after Dallas County District Judge Robin Wynne recused himself, ordered Gill
held without bail in the county jail.

Phillips also issued a gag order in the case at the request of Gill's
attorney, Dale Adams of Little Rock, and 13 th Judicial District Deputy
Prosecuting Attorney Mark Klappenbach.

Gill, who was Fordyce police chief in the early 1990 s and is a former
deputy sheriff, was arrested Thursday afternoon after a four-month
investigation by the Arkansas State Police and Dallas County sheriff's
office.

Capital murder is punishable by death or life in prison.

"Interviews and evidence provides Doug Gill with the means to commit capital
murder, killing Sandra Kaye Gill; the opportunity to kill Sandra Kaye Gill,
and a motive to kill Sandra Kaye Gill," Deputy Sheriff Cary A. Dunn wrote in
the affidavit, signed Friday.

In interviews with authorities, Gill has denied any role in his wife's
death, saying he was at work at the time she died, the affidavit says.

But authorities found gunshot residue on the shirt and pants Gill wore the
day of his wife's death - evidence that "places him in the gunshot
environment when the gun was fired," according to the affidavit.

Time sheets at Gill's place of employment, Georgia-Pacific Corp. in Fordyce,
show that he was an hour late for work the day of his wife's death and that
he had no record of being late to work before March 22, according to the
affidavit.

Witnesses told authorities that Gill and his wife may have had some marital
problems and that the two were in an argument the night before her death -
statements Gill denied in interviews with authorities, according to the
affidavit.

The affidavit also says that authorities believe the crime scene was
manipulated and the gun had been placed in the position where it was found.

Furthermore, interviews with those close to Sandra Kaye Gill indicate that
she hated guns, had never fired a weapon and had only touched the.
38-caliber pistol used in her death on two occasions, the affidavit says.

"I use the analogy: I'm scared to death of snakes, and no more would I place
a rattlesnake around my neck than she would take a gun," Mark Simon Sr.,
Sandra Kaye Gill's first son, said in a telephone interview Friday.

Simon said family members never believed that she killed herself, noting
that she was a devout Christian.

"She was always looking for more and more out of life," he said. "She
genuinely loved life and her family."

Simon, a pastor at First Assembly of God in Thomasville, Ala., said he
especially feels for his stepbrothers, Jason, T. J. and Jeff Gill.

"I really feel for them because they are pretty good guys," he said. "I hate
that all this would come about."

Sandra Kaye Gill, who was working on a doctorate in psychology, and her
husband lived in a two-story red-brick house at 219 Brandon St.

They taught Sunday School to preschoolers at First Baptist Church.

She had five children and 13 grandchildren.

Her husband grew up in Fordyce and was a football star in high school for
the Fordyce Redbugs, once scoring a touchdown on a trick play that tied the
score against the arch rival Rison Wildcats, said William Lyon, Fordyce
mayor.

Lyon said that in the months preceding Gill's arrest he received daily
questions from residents about the death and the investigation. The death,
he said, shook this close-knit community 70 miles south of Little Rock.

"It's a sad, sad thing," he said Friday. "This guy [Gill ] was a volunteer
fireman, a former deputy sheriff, a former police chief, a Sunday School
teacher. And she was a charming Christian lady. She really was."

"It's a tragedy for the town, really," he added. "The whole thing."

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Source : Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/196936/