Woman out on bail as more friends help

Bill Gang

Tuesday, July 15, 1997 | 9:36 a.m.

Barbara Pinkston, a murder defendant sent back to jail when the friends who had posted her $80,000 bail demanded the return of their money, is back home thanks to the kindness of other friends.

Pinkston sat in a jail cell for nearly three weeks before her release this month pending her September trial on murder charges in the Father's Day 1995 shooting death of her child's father.

While the original bail had been posted by 20 friends -- mostly from the San Diego area -- the new bail was put up by a couple.

Pinkston's freedom, however, may be short-lived. Prosecutors have filed a motion in District Judge Myron Leavitt's courtroom to increase the bail for the woman who could be sent to prison for life if she is convicted.

Meanwhile, Pinkston's attorney, Patricia Erickson, said the woman's trial may have to be postponed if a second attorney is not appointed to help defend the woman who contends she is the victim of "battered spouse syndrome."

Pinkston's second attorney, Alan Buttell, recently left Clark County to become a deputy prosecutor in Douglas County in Northern Nevada.

The murder charges allege that Pinkston gunned down 32-year-old Gregory Payne in June 1995 after he had visited with his then-19-month-old daughter at the Discovery Zone indoor playground in Henderson.

He had been shot in the back as he walked away from Pinkston, who witnesses said confronted him in the parking lot.

He and Pinkston, 44, had been engaged in a Family Court fight over his visitation with the girl and a hearing the day after the slaying was expected to give him unsupervised visitation.

Until then, Pinkston's mother was supervising his visits with his daughter because there were court orders that the parents stay away from each other.

After the shooting, according to Henderson Police, Pinkston fled to her car, which had been parked a couple of blocks away, and left the area.

About three hours later, she turned herself in to police.

Since her release, Pinkston has founded an activist parents' group that has picketed the Family Court and been vocal advocates for change in legislative and local government hearings.