Subject: Abortion Practitioner Convicted of Killing His Wife
Source: The Oklahoman; December 20, 2001

Abortion Practitioner Convicted of Killing His Wife

Oklahoma City, OK -- After hearing the guilty verdict, abortion
practitioner John Baxter Hamilton had about three minutes Wednesday night
to consider his fate before learning he would spend the rest of his life
in prison without the possibility of parole.

According to prosecutors, those three minutes were about a minute longer
than it took him to kill his wife.

An Oklahoma County jury Wednesday night convicted Hamilton, 53, of the
Valentine's Day murder of Susan Shibley Hamilton, 55.

The victim had been throttled with a necktie, hit with a blunt object and
had her face slammed repeatedly into the marble floor of the master
bathroom in the couple's Quail Creek home. The attack, state witnesses
said, took about two minutes.

Prosecutors presented evidence the victim suspected Hamilton of having an
affair with a topless dancer and was considering leaving him, talking of
divorce two days before the murder.

The Oklahoma County jury of seven women and five men reached its verdict
in less than two hours.

But after District Judge Ray C. Elliott declared Hamilton guilty, the
convicted killer had to wait three minutes to learn his punishment.
Elliott discovered an error on the verdict form and sent the jury back to
the deliberation room to correct it.

In the interval, Hamilton - who displayed no reaction to the guilty
verdict - huddled with his attorney, Mack Martin. The court spectators,
cautioned by Elliott to avoid emotional displays, were silent, though some
in the courtroom packed largely with Hamilton's supporters dabbed at
tears.

Susan Hamilton's daughter looked at Oklahoma City homicide detective
Theresa Sterling, one of the two principle investigators in the case. A
woman in the back of the room whispered: "This is one of those blessings
in disguise. After hearing that word, 'guilty,' now we have time to take a
breath and regroup."

And then, at 9:23 p.m., the jury filed back into the courtroom, and
Elliott announced the recommended punishment: Life without parole. Formal
sentencing is set for 9 a.m. Jan. 4.

Hamilton, who testified in his own defense on Monday, remained stoic as he
was led out in chains. His son, Chris, bolted from the room.

In court Wednesday, an expert witness for the defense said on cross-
examination that "the most probable" explanation for blood spatter found
on both sides of Hamilton's shirt sleeve was that he had beaten his wife
over the head with a blunt object. It was testimony that District Attorney
Wes Lane later called "a nuclear bombshell at the end of the trial."

On direct examination, the witness, forensic consultant and former
Oklahoma City police commander Tom Bevel, contested some conclusions drawn
by Ross Gardner, the forensic expert used by prosecutors. Gardner studied
under Bevel and co-authored two books with him.

Earlier in the trial, Gardner testified blood spatter evidence
conclusively placed Hamilton's left shoe at the murder site as the victim
was being attacked. Questioned by Martin, Bevel told jurors Wednesday the
spatter could have been caused by multiple splashes from objects striking
the blood pool as the shoe was moved from place to place.

In his testimony Monday, Hamilton described his wife's head dropping into
her blood twice as he moved her body to perform cardiopulmonary
resuscitation and to remove the necktie from her throat. He said his shoes
fell off as he jumped over her body in his haste to provide assistance,
and he later attempted to put them back on before kicking them aside and
ultimately moving them to another location.

Under Lane's questioning, however, Bevel released information devastating
to the defense, including blood evidence that had not been noticed by
other analysts. All observed spatter on the outside of Hamilton's shirt
sleeve, but only Bevel noted more blood on the inside of the cuff.

The blood pattern, he said, was consistent with "face against fist" or
with Hamilton hitting his wife with a blunt object.

"Tom Bevel says the shirt was there when she was beaten to death," Lane
said in his closing argument. "Whoever was in those shoes, whoever was in
that shirt, was there. And that only fits one man."

Martin accused police and prosecutors of making up "facts" to secure a
conviction against Hamilton, alleging detectives focused on him minutes
into the investigation and refused to consider any other possibilities.

"There are four possible outcomes here," he told jurors in his closing
argument. "You can convict a guilty man. You can release an innocent man.
You can release a guilty man. But the one that concerns me the most is the
last one. You can convict an innocent man. Please don't do that."

Hamilton's family, dissatisfied with media coverage, declined comment
after learning the verdict.

Dick Horton, father of the victim's two children, praised the district
attorney's office for doing a "phenomenal job" with the case.

"Actually, I think life in prison for someone as intelligent and good up
to that point (as Hamilton) would be worse than death," Horton said.
"Maybe in some way that's justice for Susan."

Outside the courtroom, the trial over, Lane was philosophical about the
case: "Who can explain that thin line between love and hate_ But there's a
threshold, and he crossed it, and now he's going to prison. ... Domestic
violence doesn't manifest itself in one part of town ... and murder is
sort of the ultimate domestic violence."