Manley case goes to jury

Bill Gang

Friday, July 25, 1997 | 8:50 a.m.

It is now up to a District Court jury to decide if Charles Manley's admitted involvement in the shooting death of his schoolteacher girlfriend was murder, manslaughter or -- as he claimed -- just an accident.

Deliberations began after final arguments concluded today in the two week trial that was highlighted by verbal sparring between the defendant and Deputy District Attorney Dan Seaton.

Manley, an ex-convict who had been living with Roxanne Logan for four months before her March 1995 death, had refuted the prosecution's claim that he was a manipulative person who had threatened Logan because she wanted him to move out.

Even the defendant's California attorney, Mark Wolf, admitted that Manley has been so abrasive that most people might not want him to have the benefit of the doubt.

Wolf told the jury in District Judge Sally Loehrer's courtroom to "look at facts you can rely on" and ignore testimony from witnesses with questionable motives -- such as three jailhouse snitches who said Manley had confessed to them.

But Deputy District Attorney Christopher Laurant said the jurors should consider the array of evidence that includes the snitches and Manley's early attempts to blame others for Logan's death.

"He changed his defense to match the facts at the time," the prosecutor said. "It was the defense du jour."

Laurant argued that as the couple's relationship deteriorated, Logan told friends that Manley frightened her and she feared she would be on the 5 o'clock news.

Those friends had testified that just hours before her death the couple had quarreled and Manley had driven home alone. They said that when they drove Logan home, Manley greeted them with a pistol in his hand.

Logan's body was found a couple of days later with a single bullet wound to the head.

Manley said the fatal wound occurred when they fell to the ground as he was trying to wrestle the gun from her.

Wolf portrayed Logan as a "troubled person" who was depressed at the 15th anniversary of her husband's death in a plane crash in Spain.

He noted that Logan -- who had detailed her depression in a letter less than a month before she died -- had been drinking heavily and using prescription drugs at the time of her death. Her blood alcohol was 0.14 percent.

Wolf pointed out that nowhere in the letter did Logan express a fear of Manley or indicate that she wanted him to move out, although she noted that she believed he was "a dreamer, not a doer."

Ten days before she died, Logan wrote a note to Manley promising to give him "wild love" the following weekend.

"The most important piece of evidence in the trial is that Roxanne chose Charles Manley," Wolf said. "In early March, she was still in love with him."

Laurant countered that Manley demonstrated his guilt by fleeing Las Vegas in Logan's new pickup truck after her death, although he surrendered several days later.

He reminded the jury that it wasn't the only time that Manley had fled to avoid facing Nevada justice.

Manley jumped bail early this year and was on the lam for weeks before authorities tracked him down to a budget motel in New Jersey and apprehended him as he was reaching for a .45-caliber pistol hidden under a pillow.

"Manley was ready to kill to avoid capture," Laurant said. "And he is the only one who could have done this."