MEADVILLE, Pa. — A Conneautville-area woman won’t go to jail for the shotgun slaying of her husband, ex-Niagara Falls police officer Anthony Oliver, at their home more than 15 months ago.

The not-guilty verdict in the criminal homicide trial of Patricia Oliver, 54, in Crawford County Court of Common Pleas brought gasps from supporters on both sides in attendance for the announcement Friday morning.

Oliver, who had been jailed for more than a year on a non-bondable charge of criminal homicide since her arrest Oct. 5, 2010, was set free Friday. Self-defense is the way jurors saw it, according to Robert Johnson Jr., the jury foreman, who spoke with a Meadville Tribune reporter Friday afternoon.

“A person is innocent until proven guilty,” Johnson said in a telephone interview. “The prosecution never proved anything.”

Mrs. Oliver stood accused by Pennsylvania State Police and the Crawford County District Attorney’s Office of criminal homicide in the fatal shooting of Mr. Oliver, 63, at their Hayfield Township home.

Mr. Oliver was a Traffic Division officer for the Niagara Falls Police. He retired from the force about 15 years ago. After retiring from the Falls force, he took a management position with Modern Corporation. In 2004, he was fired from there following reports of sexual improprieties.

He was shot once in the chest with a single-barrel 12-gauge shotgun just before 10 a.m. Oct. 5, 2010, following a domestic argument about bills. Mrs. Oliver’s defense team argued the shooting was in self-defense. The defense argued Mrs. Oliver told both the Crawford County 911 Center dispatcher following the shooting and police investigators who interviewed her, that she was frightened as Mr. Oliver became enraged, calling her expletives and coming at her.

The not-guilty verdict followed more than six hours of deliberation by the seven-woman, five-man jury. Deliberations began Thursday afternoon following two and one-half days of testimony at trial.

Under the general charge of criminal homicide, the jury was to decide if Mrs. Oliver was guilty of either first-degree murder, third-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter. The jury found Mrs. Oliver not guilty of any of those degrees of criminal homicide.

The defense also presented evidence at trial of a 2004 conviction against Mr. Oliver in Niagara County, N.Y., for sexual contact by forcible compulsion. Mr. Oliver was sentenced in August 2004 to 10 years probation for a sexual crime with a 38-year-old woman. Mr. Oliver pleaded guilty to that charge in June 2004 in Niagara County Court. The New York state charge was either for the use of physical force; that a threat of physical force was either said or implied; or the victim was in fear of kidnapping.

Johnson said the jury agreed with Mrs. Oliver’s claim of self-defense for justifying the shooting, based on the evidence presented by both sides.

“We knew it was either anger or total fear by the way she held the gun,” Johnson said. “We felt it was fear. We felt the prosecution — all it did — was say she was angry, and never proved that.”

Testifying in her own defense earlier this week, Mrs. Oliver said she pointed and waved the shotgun back and forth at her husband, telling him to go away, after he had come into the couple’s bedroom furious and shouting expletives.

Mrs. Oliver testified she was afraid of her husband and that he had shouted “he was going to teach me a lesson.”

Evidence presented at trial found the incident was sparked by a domestic argument about bills as Mr. Oliver had been working on them in the kitchen that morning. In a videotaped interview between police and Mrs. Oliver following her arrest that was played at trial, investigators told Mrs. Oliver they had found a shut-off notice from the couple’s electric utility among the bills and there were a couple of past-due credit card bills under the couple’s mattress.

Mrs. Oliver had testified she was taking a nap following breakfast on Oct. 5, 2010, and was awaked by her husband, yelling from the kitchen. Mrs. Oliver testified she sat on the bed, looked toward the kitchen, saw her husband get up from his chair and heard a chair bang into a kitchen cupboard. She then saw Mr. Oliver come toward the bedroom, cursing her loudly, she testified.

She said she rolled off the bed, landing between it and the doorway in an attempt to hide from her husband.

“As he was coming through the door, he was calling me a (expletive), and told me to get up,” she said. “He said he was going to teach me a lesson.”

Mrs. Oliver said she then stood up with a 12-gauge shotgun that her husband kept under the bed.

“I was scared he was going to kill me,” she said. “I thought he was going to beat the crap out of me or beat me senseless.”

She said she waved the barrel of the gun at her husband, telling him to go away.

Asked under oath what her reaction was when the gun went off, she answered “I was surprised.”

After the verdict was announced Friday,  wept when she realized the jury was setting her free. Then, through tears, she hugged and thanked her attorneys Jeff Misko, an

assistant public defender for Crawford County, and Robert Trambley, the county public defender.

Following the verdict, Misko said Mrs. Oliver was declining to speak with reporters.



Keith Gushard can be reached at (814) 724-6370 or by email at kgushard@meadvilletribune.com. The Meadville Tribute is a CNHI sister newspaper of the Niagara Gazette