I’m catching up.
Just catching up with the local gossip news. I
recall Greyfox having mentioned a story in the newspaper about a “Talkeetna woman who shot
her husband.” He mentioned it twice, as I recall, once last
summer and again last month. He even mentioned her name, Kathleen
Colbert, which didn’t mean a thing to me. I assumed she was
someone I didn’t know.
I was over at Charley’s house today, and learned that she is someone I
know, though not very well. She had moved up here from Texas in
2002 and married one of those guys who are the inspiration for
the saying, “Alaska men: the odds are good but the goods are
odd.” Nobody called her Kathleen. I’ve seen her
nickname spelled several different ways, but it sounded just like “K.C.”
Tramp, the man Casey (or whatever) came to Alaska to marry, had known
her long enough for them to have had a son in his teens at the time of
their wedding. Tramp came here to work, and then sent for the
family, I suppose. I didn’t get to know the couple very well,
because I don’t party and hang out in bars. But we had some
mutual friends and I was asked to be the photographer at their wedding.
The wedding couple are in the center of the back row here. The
victim is the fat man in the top hat, “tux” t-shirt and leather
vest. His confessed killer is the woman in the floral
headdress and white gown beside him. Their son is on the left in
the front row. The wedding itself was surreal… the whole day
was that way. The groom’s scowl here and the bride’s grimace
match the mood I observed as I followed her around taking pics.
It seemed that the wedding guests were the only ones having any
fun. Tramp was drunk before he arrived, and was so late getting
there that some people were wondering if he had changed his mind.
He kept swigging from a bottle of Yukon Jack right up until the
ceremony and resumed after the vows were spoken. The bride
chain-smoked all day, which wasn’t easy because Ray and Cindy don’t
allow smoking in their house. Kehsie (or whatever her name is)
spent a lot of the time as her attendants were dressing her, in Cindy’s
bathroom, standing on the toilet with her head hung out the window,
smoking.
The story that appeared a couple of weeks ago in the Anchorage Daily News is below:
Troopers arrest woman accused of shooting her husband to death
A Talkeetna woman accused of shooting and
killing her husband more than three months ago was arrested on
second-degree murder charges Friday, Alaska State Troopers said.
On June 3, Kathleen Colbert, 52, called 911
to say she shot her husband, 51-year-old Gary Colbert, at their home at
Mile 2 of the Talkeetna Spur Road, troopers said in a press release
Friday. According to earlier reports, Colbert also said her husband had
assaulted her and then tried to stop her from calling for help.
After the argument, Gary Colbert walked
outside, troopers said. Kathleen Colbert went upstairs, got a .357
Magnum revolver, came downstairs, and fired one round out the open
front door.
The round struck her husband in the head,
killing him, troopers said. The investigation included three witnesses
outside the house at the time.
A Palmer grand jury on Friday indicted
Colbert on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter, fourth-degree
misconduct involving weapons and driving under the influence, according
to court documents.
A Superior Court judge issued the arrest
warrant, which requires a court-appointed third party custodian prior
to release on bail. Troopers found Colbert at her home at 2:45 p.m. and
arrested her, they said.
Charley said that “nobody” believes that Tramp ever abused her, that
they never saw her “marked up” and she hadn’t reported any domestic
violence. Somebody sometime might have knocked out those front
teeth she’s missing. There is absolutely no brutish or brutal
behavior that I would deem beyond someone who drank like Tramp
did. The truth may or may not come out at her trial. If
Charley is right, local sentiment is against her. I don’t know
because, as I said, I don’t hang with that crowd.
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