A smirk led to woman’s death

Kim Smith

Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2002 | 9:19 a.m.

David Crawford was insistent Monday. He only went to Gloria Dugan's house to talk to her, he said again and again.

The gun was just a prop.

"I guess I wanted her to take me seriously," Crawford said.

She didn't.

"She kind of looked at me, like a smirk, like she didn't think I would use it," Crawford said.

Seconds later, Crawford said he remembers seeing a bullet piercing Dugan's chest and blood flying.

"Did you think before you shot her?" Deputy Public Defender Scott Coffee asked.

"No," Crawford said, sobbing.

"Did you weigh the pros and cons before you shot her?" Coffee asked.

"No," Crawford said.

"Did you think about the effect this would have on your life, on her life before you shot her?" Coffee asked.

"No, no," Crawford muttered.

Monday was the fourth day of testimony in Crawford's trial. The 35-year-old Pahrump resident is accused of open murder in the March 24, 1997, slaying of Dugan in her Las Vegas home.

Prosecutors allege Crawford emptied his gun into Dugan when she refused to leave her fiance for him.

If jurors agree Crawford acted "intentionally, deliberately and with premeditation," they must convict Crawford of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon.

If jurors, however, believe Crawford acted in the "heat of passion," they could come back with a voluntary manslaughter verdict.

Crawford told jurors he met Dugan, 26, at a bar in August 1996. Although engaged to another man, Crawford said Dugan quickly agreed to marry him instead.

Dugan's other fiance was in Korea with the Air Force, allowing them to spend nearly every day together, Crawford said. They went to movies, dinner, stargazing and he introduced her to his elderly parents.

"It was the type of relationship I grew up with at home," Crawford said, comparing their relationship to that of his parents. "I loved her very much."

Things soured, however, when Dugan visited her other fiance in the Bahamas and when the man twice came to visit Dugan, Crawford said.

Dugan promised to break up with the man over the course of the next seven months, but never managed to.

Twice, he and Dugan got into physical fights, but each time they made up, Crawford said.

Crawford insisted that the phone records that could prove Dugan called him just as much as he called her have simply been lost or destroyed.

Crawford also told Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo that both of his .38 caliber weapons were bought for his own protection at Dugan's insistence. He had one for his home and one for his car.

It was simply coincidence, Crawford said, that one was purchased the day after he told Dugan's fiance of their affair and was brushed off by the man.

It was also a coincidence the second gun was bought the day after Dugan took out a restraining order against him, Crawford said.

In the three days before Dugan died, Crawford said he began to suspect Dugan was seeing a third man. It was then he decided to confront her.

"I was thinking I wanted to talk to her, find out where I stood," Crawford said.

Crawford denied DiGiacomo's suggestion that Dugan tried to end their relationship that night and he snapped.

"She never came out and directly said that," Crawford said.

Crawford said he can't remember what Dugan said to make him pull the gun. He just remembers her smirking.

"A smirk is the reason you executed Gloria Dugan?" DiGiacomo asked.

"That and everything else that was going on," Crawford said, still insisting he had no intention of killing Dugan that night.

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