When the gun of Atlanta attorney Claud “Tex” McIver went off in a car and killed his wife Diane McIver, he insisted that he pulled out the gun when he thought that they have inadvertently driven into a Black Lives Matter protest. Police however believe that McIver intentionally shot his wife and then sought to cover up the crime with a friend who was driving the car. The case involves a series of factual and legal twists.
The police have investigated the shooting for months and then secured an indictment from a grand jury for malice murder, felony murder and five other counts. McIver insisted that he did not intend to pull the trigger. However, prosecutors allege that he told Patricia “Dani Jo” Carter, a friend of his wife, to deny that she was there even though she was driving the SUV.
If the indictment is true, McIver showed remarkably poor judgment for an attorney, particularly in leaving a voicemail that allegedly told Carter’s husband, Thomas Carter, to stop his wife from “communicating her recollections of the facts and circumstances of the death of Diane McIver to law enforcement officers, because said statements placed the defendant at imminent risk of immediate incarceration.” He added that Carter should destroy the voicemail after he listened to it. That would obviously be a devastating piece of evidence in a trial.
Initially, McIver was given bond on the charges but that bond was revoked after a gun was found in his sock drawer. Under his bond, he could not have any firearms.
These allegations were used to secure an indictment for attempting to unlawfully influence witnesses in his case.
Adding to this drama is the fact that McIver owed his wife $350,000 that he borrowed in 2012 from her business Clay Management Co. Notably, he agreed to pay interest on the loan but then failed to pay it back in 2014. He was given an extension to 2017.
Another interesting twist is that McIver sold his wife’s furs and precious belongings to support his legal team for roughly $1.1 million. However, after the auction, the prosecutor secured a stay under the state’s “Slayer Law,” which prevents someone who caused the death of another person from receiving the proceeds of an estate, trust or life insurance policy. The auction was stopped even though McIver had not been found guilty of the crime at the time.
McIver was a prominent partner at Fisher Phillips, where specialized in employment law on the defense side. He defended employers in more than 200 union organizing campaigns.
Free speech?
http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/not-covered-under-first-amendment-aclu-wrong-about-trump-and-incitement-violence
Off topic but as I am no lawyer I have a question about Minnesota Sand asserting violation of constitutional rights in
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Is-Sand-The-New-Oil-And-Gas-Battleground.html
Seems to me that this is a state law matter.
He looks like a hillbilly. Where did he go to high school?
Sounds like they have the attorney over a barrel.
That is so sad. I wonder what happened. You wouldn’t think someone would shoot and kill his wife on purpose with her friend in the car…but there are all kinds of scenarios where it would occur. And it’s especially heinous that he cast about for a black person to blame via BLM. Since he indicated that the witness’s statement would immediately put him in jail, it does not sound like an accident. I hope they release the facts of the investigation.
It’s tragic when there is the element of intense betrayal in a crime – a person shooting their service animal, a husband killing his wife, or God forbid a parent harming their child. It takes a crime to a dark place we all instinctively cringe from. What especially troubles me is that when a woman is killed, statistically it’s most often by her significant other, or someone who used to be significant to her.
And it’s especially heinous that he cast about for a black person to blame via BLM
Why is that ‘especially heinous’? If he scapegoats someone he scapegoats someone.
At least he didn’t shoot his dog.
Story ends with 3rd party giving up all.
The Right to Arm Bears. The Second Amd framers were dyslectic. They did not intend to arm husbands.
So I guess there’s no more dangerous scenario he could think of than a BLM protest blocking his path to explain why he pulled out a loaded weapon? Not “some deranged black or brown person put his hand on my car and I thought he was breaking in…I fumbled with the gun inadvertently shooting my wife in a panic as the assailant ran off”? Not, “there was a street fight of armed thugs in front of me so…”. Not even the old “a dark rapist grabbed my wife through an open window but I couldn’t see him in the night and shot her by mistake”? Just short and simple: “I thought it was a BLM protest so naturally I did what any terrified pasty Georgian would do and proceeded to fire several shots into the air to cause them to scatter, only my wife’s big head got in the way” and of course a horde of black people in his mind are too used to gunfire for there to be any witnesses. rip to his wife
This reads like a poor script for a Columbo episode. Why were the 3 of them in the car? Why would the so called friend be willing to assist this man in the crime? Or the friend’s husband for that matter? Shooting her in the back is an odd choice if he was intending to kill her. Why not the head?
“If the indictment is true, McIver showed remarkably poor judgment for an attorney,”
Attorneys aren’t superheros. They have the same fallible human nature as everyone else.
This reads like a poor script for a Columbo episode.
The supposed perpetrator here is very much like a Colombo antagonist and some of the posited circumstances are like a Colombo episode (one person killing an intimate for business reasons). However, Colombo scripts invariably begin with one person killing another in a private setting e.g a sitting room or a kitchen or (in one episode) at a museum. The killer is always known to the audience. The drama is incorporated into the serial conversations between Colombo and the perpetrator, in which the perpetrator is incrementally check-mated. There are no interrogation scenes in a Colombo episode. The perpetrator is always questioned in informal settings (e.g. his home) and questioned by Colombo alone. There are very seldom alternative suspects considered or pursued. The salient dialogue and action consist of conversations between the perpetrator and Colombo. The audience is always uncertain about how much Colombo has pieced together (though there are episodes which conclude with Colombo revealing some of his off-stage thoughts and inquiries). It was remarkably subtle and inventive approach to crime drama in an era when television programming was typically godawful junk.
Why do people do this?
I gather he’s using some variant of the Claudine Longet defense. I don’t think elderly BigLaw attorneys with expensive tastes get a girl’s discount. Either law enforcement is so confused that it’s one for the books, or this man is charred toast.
If I’m not mistaken, law enforcement’s able to clear about 90% of the homicide cases which occur outside of slum neighborhoods. It’s like bank robbery: the number of people who fancy they can get away with it vastly exceeds the number who can.
Just like in the old movies? Get everyone around an elegant dinner table, and the brilliant detective will get the culprit to confess.
???
Don’t you watch murder mysteries from the 1930s/40s on TCM?
No, very seldom. I do like British detective serials, but they’re sociological nonsense. One that’s been broadcast intermittently for nearly 20 years is set in the English West Country. There are usually 2 or 3 homicides in an episode. The number of serial killers (3 or more victims) active in the English West Country in the last 60 years or so sums to about 3. Another set are set in Oxfordhire. One fellow I correspond with happened to meet an Oxfordshire police officer while traveling. Oxfordshire has a population about 600,000 or so. The Oxford cop tells him there are fewer than a dozen homicides in Oxfordshire in a typical year and that most of them result from bar fights.
dss – you been watching Midsomer Murders?
WLM: Wife Lives Matter.
blockquote, div.yahoo_quoted { margin-left: 0 !important; border-left:1px #715FFA solid !important; padding-left:1ex !important; background-color:white !important; } Dearest One: Maybe this is the Atlanta attorney who should have been gunned down on the sidewalk just outside our coffee shop. His wife probably enjoyed his attention, but this was too much for her. Please let the record reflect that I do not possess a gun. 🤗 hugs,Bob
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad
Keep us posted. Let us know if any life insurance policies turn up.
Or affairs with the wife’s best friend.
There is something very fishy with this story. I can hardly wait for the film.
Sooo, this guy, an attorney, murdered his wife in front of a third person in an small enclosed space??? Sounds a little fishy to me. I notice he did not tell the third person to lie about anything other than being there, or make up a story about the circumstance, but to simply STFU. Sounds to me like the cops liked him for murder, and then the attorney reacted in a reasonable fashion and asked a woman to stop running her mouth.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Spouse murders always spike during BLM protests–they’re worse than the Super Bowl. Anyway it’s not very unusual for guys nicknamed “Tex” to kill their wives.
It’s the classic lawyer-can’t-afford-wealthy-wife’s-interest-so-shoots-her-and-uses-black-lives-matter-protests-as-cover scenario. Boy, if you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it a thousand times. I think I saw that episode on Matlock once.
It seems as though they had an odd marriage. Who would charge interest on a loan to a spouse?
I guess it was the kind of marriage in which he would kill his wife! As to the loan it was from
Her business.
There was probably a tax angle connected to the loan.