Pinkstons testifies in her defense

Mark Miller

Tuesday, Sept. 16, 1997 | 9:53 a.m.

Repeatedly saying "I was very afraid," Barbara Pinkston described the events before she fatally shot Greg Payne, the father of her daughter, on Father's Day 1995 outside of the Discovery Zone in Green Valley.

"He said, 'You stand right there. I'm going to blow your (expletive) head off,'" a tearful Pinkston testified. "He turned around and went to his truck. I thought he was going to get his gun."

Pinkston's words came while on the stand Monday in the courtroom of District Judge Myron Leavitt. After listening carefully the past week to witnesses in her trial for murder, she finally had a chance to tell her side of the story.

Her side has been that the slaying of Payne is defensible because of his physical and verbal abuse, including threats to her life. The prosecution maintains that Pinkston skillfully fabricated evidence of abuse to use it as her defense for a murder that was premeditated.

Deputy District Attorney Peggy Leen will try to pick apart Pinkston's story during cross examination that began today.

Pinkston motioned as though she were turning a key while she described Payne's next actions.

"He had his keys in his hand and started to put them in the lock of the door," she said. "I think I said stop. I don't know.

"I heard a very loud noise. Just feelings," she said, opening her hand with fingers wide, then closing them around an imaginary pistol grip. "I got my gun out of my purse. I pulled the trigger. I didn't mean to. I pulled the trigger," emotions making her voice a high-pitched whisper.

"He just stood there," she claimed, conflicting police witnesses who said Payne dropped from the first bullet "like a rock."

Now visibly shaking, Pinkston continued.

"I thought I missed him. He turned away from the door, facing me. I don't know what happened. He fell down on the ground. I heard a second shot. I don't remember what I did. I know that he had been hit because he had fell down.

"I left. I tried to run. I felt like I couldn't run very good."

She said she ran to her car and sped away. Because she didn't have control over the car and "kept running over curbs," she pulled the car over and "waited for the police," she said.

She said she then took the remaining bullets out of her gun so the police would not catch her with a loaded weapon. "I thought that would be more of a problem."

When the police did not come, she said she started off for a police station, stopping once at a parking lot and again at a convenience story at Maryland Parkway and Bonanza Road "to call home."

It took her five hours to reach the police station from the crime scene.

She had gone to the Discovery Zone that afternoon to talk to Payne, despite a court order forbidding Pinkston and Payne from meeting, because she "thought that was the only way that things could be settled -- settled in terms of what's good for Kaitlin (her and Payne's daughter)."

Payne was at the Discovery Zone with his daughter on a five-hour visit supervised by Pinkston's mother. Pinkston said that when she arrived, Payne was receptive. "Greg had tears in his eyes and was glad to see me."

This surprised Pinkston because, she claimed, two days earlier he had threatened to kill her or not let her ever see their daughter if he got custody of her at a hearing the next Monday.

Before describing the day of the murder, Pinkston testified about her and Payne's 2 1/2-year relationship that began in October 1992 when he answered her newspaper ad for a housemate.

Their relationship started off very businesslike but quickly became intimate she said, especially the night she loaned Payne money to buy a car. They eventually lodged charges of domestic battery against each other that resulted in court hearings and temporary protective orders.