Coroner: ‘Assassination’ shots fired into victim

Wednesday, April 7, 2004 | 9:37 a.m.

The shots Alfred "Chip" Centofanti allegedly fired into the head of his ex-wife, Virginia "Gina" Eisenman, were "assassination" shots, a Clark County coroner testified Tuesday in the third week of Centofanti's murder trial.

Lary Simms, a forensic pathologist with the Clark County coroner's office, testified Tuesday that the four shots to Eisenman's upper body appeared to have been fired first. Then, after her head was stationary, three final shots were fired into her head, Simms said.

"I call them assassination shots," Simms said. "After you take them down, just like you see in the movies, you go up to them and shoot them in the head."

Eisenman suffered gunshot wounds to her lower left back, her upper left arm, her front left shoulder, left breast, the right side of her forehead, just below her right eye and through her lip, Simms testified. She also had gun shot spatter marks on her right arm and face, indicating she was shot at least twice at a range of 6 inches to 2 feet, he said.

Eisenman had no contusions or markings to indicate she had been in any kind of sustained fight before death, Simms said, either as an aggressor or in a defensive mode.

The two shots to her back also indicated Eisenman was not being aggressive, Simms said.

"She was either running away or was caught off guard," Simms testified.

Defense attorneys for Centofanti do not dispute that the former attorney shot Eisenman, but they contend that it was done in self-defense.

In opening arguments before District Judge Donald Mosley, Allen Bloom, an attorney from California, said Eisenman was a party girl who had been arrested for battery against Centofanti in an arrest two weeks before the Dec. 20, 2000, killing.

Bloom said in his opening arguments that Eisenman attacked Centofanti that night in the couple's Summerlin home. In his cross-examination of Simms, Bloom presented police studies that state an individual can turn their back on someone faster than a shooter can pull a trigger, something Simms agreed was possible.

Simms also acknowledged it was possible Eisenman was still standing up when she was shot in the face and only fell to the ground after the first shot. But he said the tight grouping of the shots indicated her head was stationary and it was most likely that she was lying on the ground when those shots were fired.

Prosecutors said the shooting was the culmination of a turbulent relationship that included previous domestic disputes. The couple's divorce was finalized only a few days before Eisenman's death.

Bloom said he planned to call several of his own pathologists, blood spatter and firearms experts today and Thursday who will testify that it is possible Eisenman was standing when she was shot in the head and that Centofanti could have fired all seven shots within a matter of seconds before he realized what he was doing.

Other witnesses for the defense include psychologists testifying that Centofanti's actions were consistent with someone acting out of fear, witnesses supporting the defendant's contention that his ex-wife was violent, and Centofanti himself, Bloom said.