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that she first learned of the gun during that time.
A legal point that was completely disregarded by both juries was the duty to retreat to avoid a violent incident or the escalation of violence. Kidwell did not retreat because she was going to “make my stand.” She was not afraid t she was holding all the cards and a shotgun which she testified that Ranee Spellman did not see until she thrust it out the window and shot him with it. She made a conscious decision as to how much work she would allow him to perform and when that was exceeded, she shot him.
Ranee Spellman did not retreat because he did not know he was in mortal danger and would not have even considered a physical altercation, let alone a gun fight, with Diane Kidwell, grandmother of the year.
I, like others who knew and liked Ranee Spellman, have felt compelled to write letters because Ranee is dead, therefore unable to defend himself against the character assassination which has proliferated throughout the trials and has been perpetuated in editorials and letters to the editor.
Ranee, like the rest of us, is not likely to be a candidate for sainthood nor did he create the heavens and earth, as Donnie Johnston pointed out in a Culpeper News editorial on November 17. What he did, however, was take a poor excuse for a farm and almost single handedly build a heaven on earth for Ms. Saltonstall. He touched the lives of others as well, like my family, who are proud to have known him.
Ranee Spellman was a good man. He was not the violent and pugnacious man you would be made to believe, but then he did not have the battery of lawyers to defend his reputation like Diane Kidwell used to destroy it.
The prosecutor certainly made no attempt to refute the character assassination but of course he had his private practice to be concerned with and did not have the time.
Diane Kidwell’s reputation was not admissable in court and she was the defendant.
Ranee Spellman should not have been put on trial, either in the court or in the newspapers. He is the real victim.
Slate Mills
BOB EVANS,
81.3%