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

DATE: SATURDAY, April 22, 1995                   TAG: 9504240054
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

SHOT HUSBAND SAYS WIFE'S BULLETS MAKE HIM BETTER

On Valentine's Day, Kimberly Renee Wofford shot her husband - first in the gut, then in the groin.

She told police it was self-defense - that he tried to attack her with a knife. But Mark Wofford told detectives that she had shot him first while he was asleep, and again after he got out of bed. They charged her with malicious wounding.

But Friday, Roanoke prosecutors dropped the charge after Wofford testified that he couldn't remember what happened the day he almost died.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Greg Phillips contends that Wofford ``chose not to remember'' because he and his wife are back together again.

Wofford, 24, says he can't remember because he was in a coma for days after he was shot. ``Sometimes I think I remember, but it's like a dream. It's a blank.''

He said he had been abusive to his wife, but getting shot changed the way he sees the world.

``She hasn't done nothing wrong,'' he said in an interview Friday night. ``I think the reason I can say that is because for the first time I feel like a victim.'' He never realized until now that he was wrong for hurting her, he said.

For her part, Kim Wofford is glad her husband is finally willing go to counseling with her - they have an appointment next week.

``The whole relationship is different,'' she said. ``It's got a light shining on it. Before it was burned out, if you know what I mean.''

Phillips, the prosecutor, said he's glad the Woffords are seeking counseling, but ``it would be naive to think that things have changed. I hope they have, but I doubt it.''

For now, ``They're in a honeymoon period,'' Phillips said. ``In domestic cases, after the violence is over, there's a long honeymoon period where things are somehow better than they ever were before.'' But that ends and the violence repeats itself - and often gets worse.

In court Friday, Phillips tried to press Mark Wofford by reminding him of his earlier statements about the shooting. When he talked to police and to his brother, the prosecutor said, Wofford ``remembered what happened quite vividly.''

``He remembers everything except anything relevant to this case,'' Phillips said. ``He's made a conscious decision: It's his life and this is what he's going to do. He's more than implying that he does remember but he's not going to admit he remembers ... because he's back with her."

But Mark Wofford said, ``That's not it. I honestly can't remember. I've got doctors who can back that up. I don't remember getting off work that day. I don't even remember going to work.''

His history of violence against his wife goes back many years. ``I was bigger than her,'' he said. Once she swore out an assault warrant, and a judge ordered them into counseling. They went once but he refused to go anymore.

Things got really bad early this year, and she got herself into counseling. A couple days before Valentine's Day, his violence put her in the hospital. Her attorney, Laura Reed, said Kim Wofford claimed he had choked her with the strap from a pocketbook.

According to Mark Wofford's statement to police, he had his belongings packed in his car and was prepared to move out of their home on Jamison Avenue Southeast the next day. He went to sleep, then awoke just before 2:30 a.m. - to a crashing boom.

He had been shot just below the breastbone with a .40-caliber pistol. He got off the bed, he told police, and his wife shot him in the groin.

Kim Wofford, however, said that her husband was not leaving: He had left her briefly and was moving back in. They had gone out together that evening, she said.

After the shooting, she called 911 and told the dispatcher that she had shot her husband because he had come at her with a knife. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.

``They had to massage his heart to keep him alive,'' Phillips said. ``We were expecting him to die.''

He spent five days in a coma, and afterward he was heavily medicated. That made his statement to police unreliable, defense attorney Reed said. For example, Reed said, he claimed that he had made the 911 call.

Wofford said he can't even remember talking to the detective, though he must have.

Friday, Phillips told him that if his wife ever shot and killed him, prosecutors would see to it that she would get ``a completely suspended sentence - because that would be your wish.''

The Woffords, who have two preschool children, say they never considered divorce.

Little more than a week ago, Mark Wofford wrote a letter asking a judge to keep his wife out on bail ``for she hasn't done anything wrong. She's not a threat to me. I'm very depressed and I only feel good when I can be with Kim.''

She's been taking care of him since he got out of the hospital a week ago. ``She's just constantly apologizing,'' he said. ``She's been waiting on me hand and foot. She's always by my side. You can count on two hands the hours that she's been away.'' He said he sent her out to play bingo Friday night to give her a break.

In a telephone interview from the bingo hall, Kim Wofford said she hasn't apologized, but ``I regret that it came to the extreme it did.'' She's taking care of her husband for a simple reason: ``I love him.''

Now they want to move on.

``I'm glad that we don't have a lot of courts and people butting into our business anymore,'' Kim Wofford said. ``Nobody was really there at the house and nobody knows what happened. Now that it's all dismissed and it's over, nobody needs to know.''