SCOTT COUNTY : Woman guilty of slaying spouse
Posted on Thursday, June 5, 2008
WALDRON — A jury on Wednesday convicted a Mena woman of manslaughter and abuse of a corpse in the death and dismemberment her husband in 2003.
Jurors recommended the maximum sentences for the crimes.
The Scott County Circuit Court panel deliberated for nearly four hours Wednesday before convicting Patricia McClanahan, 64, of the two offenses.
In finding her guilty of manslaughter, the jury acquitted her of first-degree and second-degree murder.
After deliberating for another eight minutes, the jury of nine woman and three men agreed with prosecutors and recommended McClanahan be sentenced to 10 years in prison on the manslaughter conviction and six years on the abuse of a corpse charge.
Besides the maximum $ 10, 000 fine for each conviction, the jury recommended that McClanahan serve the sentences consecutively.
Circuit Judge Elizabeth Danielson followed the jury’s recommendations in sentencing McClanahan, then set her appeal bond at $ 350, 000. Mc-Clanahan’s original bail was $ 1 million.
Deputy prosecutor John Riedel told jurors in the sentencing phase of the six-day trial that McClanahan could serve as little as one-sixth of the total sentence — or about 1 2 / 2 years — if she was given the maximum sentences on the convictions and served them consecutively.
Riedel said McClanahan would also get time credited for the nearly 13 months she spent in jail awaiting trial.
Mike Allison, one of Mc-Clanahan’s attorneys, said they may appeal the conviction for abuse of a corpse, saying the statute of limitations on the offense is three years.
The victim, 60-year-old Joseph Campiglia, was killed on Jan. 5, 2003, and his remains were found more than four years later.
Allison said he didn’t think they would appeal the manslaughter conviction.
McClanahan was charged with first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse in the death of Campiglia, her husband of 28 years.
In May 2007, she told Arkansas State Police investigators she accidentally shot Campiglia with a shotgun he brought out while beating her for cashing his Social Security check.
She admitted she hid his body in a shed behind their home for about two weeks before she cut off his head, arms and legs and dumped the parts in a catfish pond on a Scott County farm.
The owner of the farm found Campiglia’s decomposing torso in the pond in May 2007. The discovery led to McClanahan’s arrest.
Riedel told jurors in closing arguments Wednesday that Campiglia’s death wasn’t an accident, and McClanahan dismembered the body and dropped it in the pond so that it could never be identified if found.
He disagreed with the defense’s argument that McClanahan was innocent of murder because she feared for her life as a result of continued domestic abuse.
“Don’t let her become the victim in this case,” Riedel said to jurors. “She’s the defendant. She did everything in her power to make sure he’s never found.”
The domestic abuse claim was her attempt to get away with murder, he said.
But in his closing argument, Irwin insisted that McClanahan and her daughter Tenaya Negron were the victims of routine abuse from Campiglia.
Irwin told jurors that they had to believe McClanahan’s story that the shooting was accidental because the state produced no contradictory evidence.
The only evidence the state presented — the dismembered body and the knife, saw, rope and tarp found with it — proved only abuse of a corpse, not murder, he said.
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