Man Snores, Woman Fatally Shoots Him

(Bishopville, South Carolina) A 37-year-old local mother, Tippy Retana, was arrested yesterday for fatally shooting her boyfriend, 30-year-old Kenneth Wilson. Wilson's body was found Christmas morning.

According to Lee County Sheriff's Capt. J.D. Dillinger, investigators were frustrated for two days by a lack of evidence before Retana confessed.

"She indicated that this had been an ongoing domestic situation that just kept going until it just escalated to this tragic event on Christmas morning," Dillinger said.

In a written confession, she told deputies that at about one that morning, she put both the baby and her teenaged son in the car, went back in the house and shot Wilson three times. Originally, though, she said she left the house because Wilson was snoring.

"She was just fearful and didn't know what to do and she took her kids and left and went back to her mother's and just thought and worried about what she was going to do and somewhere along the line that story came up, and she tried to stick with it," Dillinger explained.

Since he was snoring, it appears that Wilson was asleep when Retana plugged him with three shots.

This situation reminds me of the Mary Winkler case. Wait until the old man goes to sleep, then shoot him. Mary Winkler walked away from a homicide with a virtual hand slap. Boy, I sure hope we're not seeing a fashion trend in judicial rulings.

A thorough prosecutorial examination of Retana's thinking would find how much she relied upon the Winkler verdict as she intentionally blasted Wilson's sleeping body with lead.

Tip: SuidaeEmpathy


[Update 01/14/08]

Retana's bond set Friday at $100,000.