Accused Killer to Use Insanity Defense
Accused killer to use an insanity defense
Read more Crime in St. Johns County online
By KEN LEWIS
Staff Writer
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Ken Lewis |
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Citing a family history of bipolarity and murder, the attorney for accused killer Terry Gray says Gray will rely on an insanity defense.
Miami attorney Frank L. Hollander filed a notice of that defense in the St. Johns County Courthouse on Wednesday, prior to any indictment that might specify what charges Gray will face in court. The 49-year-old St. Augustine South man was arrested on a murder charge by the St. Johns County Sheriff's deputies after his wife, Jeannine Gray, was killed on April 1.
Jeannine was a lifelong St. Johns County resident. The mother of three was a former worker in the St. Augustine probation office and an administrative assistant in a federal probation office in Jacksonville. The 44-year-old was shot in the throat with a 9 mm handgun after intervening in a fight between her daughter and Terry Gray in their home on Wisteria Road, the sheriff's office said.
Hollander, in an interview with The St. Augustine Record, said he will push for a change of venue once he puts all the facts together. He said he won't go into his defense strategies nor how the insanity pleading will affect them. He said he thinks the court would treat the accused fairly, but Jeannine was popular and well liked. Everybody seems to know everybody, he said.
"It's just too tight knit," Hollander said.
The area is nothing like Miami, where Hollander represented Gray's older brother in a recent murder trial. Jack Gray, 54 who slayed his aunt.
Among Hollander's concerns are the connections that the Grays had to the St. Johns County Courthouse. Terry Gray was hired on Sept. 19, 2000, as a mail carrier for the clerk's office. He worked in part under Carlton Moore, the ex-husband of the woman Gray is accused of killing.
Gray was fired on March 28, 2001, after a public "verbal outburst," according to his personnel file.
"He was terribly angry, and he was filled with rage," wrote Sevie Gullette, director of Records Management for the clerk's office. Gray had not been picked to attend a seminar in Tampa.
Days later, he received a trespass warning from a deputy sheriff after showing up at Moore's apartment on April 1, exactly two years before Jeannine was shot. Gray had been fighting with Moore's daughters, Moore said.
"That night, everybody was afraid of him," Moore told The Record.
Two months later, Gray's older brother Jack stabbed their elderly aunt to death in Miami. Jack thought she was hiding his pain-killer prescription,Hollander said. He is now a free man and is currently in "Loving Care," a facility in Miami Beach.
"You're dealing with a disturbed family," Hollander said.
Families and Histories
Moore said his children, especially his 15-year-old daughter, were afraid of Gray. He described Gray as an "actor."
"He liked to blame people for things, too," Moore said.
Days before Jeannine's death, she met Moore in a parking lot at night and said she feared Gray
