Woman to Plead Not
Guilty to Staging 'Stampede Death' of D.A. Husband
Associated Press
Thursday, July 31, 2008
via Fox News
Raynella Dossett
Leath, 59, also faces a murder charge in the 2003
death of her second husband.
The new indictment charges her with first-degree murder in
the 1992 death of William Edward Dossett.
She was released on $25,000 bail. Her attorney, James A.H.
Bell, said she will plead not guilty to Dossett's
death, just as she as did to her second husband's death.
At the time of the district attorney's death, officials
ruled he was knocked down and trampled by cattle in his pasture.
But questions about whether he was drugged emerged in
January during hearings about whether to exhume his body. A medical examiner
testified that toxicology reports completed after the district attorney's
autopsy in 1992 indicated he may have died instead from an overdose of
morphine.
Dossett Leath
is a former nurse.
Dossett had a surgically installed
morphine pump to treat pain caused by his terminal cancer, but prosecutors have
said the amount of morphine found in his system was so high the district
attorney likely would not have been able to walk.
"I hate it has taken so long a period of time to move
toward resolution of Ed Dossett's death," said
special prosecutor Richard Fisher. "Justice doesn't always move this slow, but at least it is moving forward."
Fisher said he expected to make another request to exhume
the body, though he suggested other evidence has been uncovered by cold case
investigators at the Knox County Sheriff's Office.
Dossett Leath
is accused of fatally shooting her second husband, David Leath,
a barber and lifelong friend of first husband. She claims the retired barber
committed suicide.
Prosecutors have said there are similarities between the
deaths. Leath was found to have painkillers and
antidepressants that were not prescribed for him in his system at the time of
his death.
foxnews.com