PANAMA CITY — Jurors found a disabled man guilty Wednesday of manslaughter and aggravated battery for shooting and killing his wife’s lover and wounding her.
Michael Joe McCoy, 44, was charged with second-degree murder and attempted murder in early February after emergency crews found his wife gut-shot and her lover face down in a ditch outside McCoy’s home in Fountain.
In the final day of trial Wednesday, jurors heard two vastly different stories from the two witnesses. McCoy said he feared for his life when he shot and killed David Walker, 46, and critically wounded his wife in the crossfire. Susan McCoy, 37, said her husband went into a jealous rage and intentionally turned a 9 mm pistol on each of them.
Jurors reached a guilty verdict for the lesser offenses Wednesday night after five hours of deliberation.
McCoy could face 25 years to life in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 18.
Deputies arrived at the McCoys’ home on Rhonda Road after receiving calls about two gunshot victims.
After six years of marriage, the McCoys’ relationship had deteriorated under looming financial problems. The couple decided to call it quits in January but agreed to live together and remain civil.
That ended with the gunfire about 2:30 a.m. Feb. 5.
McCoy “stood up and he was like, you know what, and fired at David,” Susan McCoy testified. “In the same swoop, as soon as he quit shooting David, he turned and shot me twice. It was like he didn’t even miss a beat.”
Michael McCoy appeared before jurors in a wheelchair Wednesday, although he could walk with forearm crutches the night of the shooting.
He told investigators after the incident that he initially armed himself with the intention of taking his own life, but his wife talked him out of it. He said he had just learned that she and Walker were having an affair and demanded that Walker — who had been staying with the couple for a few days after his release from the Bay County Jail following a domestic battery arrest — leave their home.
The two men began to argue outside the house. McCoy said Walker had started to approach him when he fired, and Susan McCoy ended up in the crossfire.
“I went to help her, and I ended up shooting her by accident,” he said.
Four shots later, Walker lay dead with two gunshot wounds in his chest, one in his calf and one in his back ribs. Susan McCoy then charged Michael McCoy, and he shot her a second time in the stomach, Michael McCoy said.
“I shot her low in the stomach because I didn’t want to hurt her,” he said.
Family members of Susan McCoy testified that her husband had talked about a self-defense shooting for years. The prosecution’s case against Michael McCoy hinged on the argument between him and Walker and the lack of fear he showed in the shooting.
Michael McCoy began to taunt Walker as he tried to leave, prosecutor Larry Basford said in his closing argument.
“He was trying to bait (Walker) to come back because he had that pistol in his pocket,” Basford said. “As (McCoy) saw it, anyone who messed with him — because he is crippled — he could shoot them dead.”
Basford argued that without signs of a true threat, Michael McCoy shot Walker four times and then turned the gun on Susan McCoy.
However, defense attorney Kim Jewell argued that evidence at the scene did not support that version of events. The location of shell casings supported Michael McCoy’s chronology, with five casings in one place and one casing in another. That indicated the gun was in one position for five shots and in another for the last, Jewell argued.
Walker’s gunshot wounds and where his body fell also supported McCoy’s story, Jewell said.
“If Walker’s out there by the road saying, ‘I’m leaving, bye,’ how can he get there,” she asked the jury. “These are the facts you cannot argue.”