Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 16, 1993                   TAG: 9307160244
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI                                LENGTH: Medium

FAMILY SAYS FATAL SHOOTING WAS IN SELF-DEFENSE

There was no history of domestic violence during the 60-year marriage of Stella Mae and Walter H. Pagan.

Yet Walter Pagan, 79, died after he physically assaulted his 80-year-old wife at their rural Pulaski County home.

Stella Pagan reacted to the beating by grabbing a .22-caliber revolver and firing at her husband. She then telephoned for help.

"She didn't know what to do. She just panicked," said daughter Shirley Akers, one of nine children raised by the Pagans.

Capt. Donnie Simpkins of the Pulaski County Sheriff's Department said the couple had no reported domestic problems.

He said Stella Mae Pagan sustained facial bruises and that the shooting was prompted by a "domestic assault" by her husband.

Stunned family members, who gathered Thursday at the couple's small frame house on Case Knife Road, believe a medication imbalance caused Walter Pagan to go berserk, Akers said.

"He's never done anything like this before. That wasn't him. We've never seen violence in this house," she said.

Walter Pagan, a retired worker at the Radford Arsenal, had surgery on his arm last month and had been taking pain medication," Akers said.

Her father was already taking medications for pre-existing conditions, she said, adding "It was causing his attitude to be different."

Several family members noticed his increasing irritability over the past several weeks.

"But we never suspected nothing like this," she said.

Wednesday, Walter Pagan returned home from a trip to Pulaski and "went into a rage," Akers said, throwing chairs and beating his wife with his fists and "anything he could get ahold of."

She shot him more than once, with the fatal bullet striking Walter Pagan in the abdomen, said William Massello, assistant deputy chief medical examiner for Western Virginia.

He died during surgery at Pulaski County Hospital after the shooting.

Stella Pagan has been charged with murder and felonious firearm use and was released on bond. She is scheduled to be arraigned in Pulaski County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on July 29.

"We're just trying to keep her quiet" at home, Akers said. "But she's real upset."

Marriage records show that Walter Pagan was 18 and Stella Jones was 19 when they were married in Pulaski County on Sept. 24, 1932.

"They were homebodies," said Akers.

Staff writer Kathy Loan contributed information to this report.