79-year-old guilty in husband killing

By Tracy Neal

Posted: December 14, 2011 at 10:21 a.m.

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A 79-year-old Rogers woman pleaded guilty Wednesday morning to manslaughter in connection with the shooting death of her husband.

Myrtle Walter originally was charged with capital murder, but prosecutors reduced the charge to manslaughter, a class C felony, under an arrangement attorney W.H. Taylor reached with Benton County Prosecutor Van Stone.

Walter was arrested on Oct. 4, 2008. She told police she shot and killed her 74-year-old husband while he slept in the bedroom of their residence at 1105 S. 12th St., according to court documents.

Stone told Circuit Judge Jon Comstock that Walter, who was 75 at the time of the shooting, drank several beers and then retrieved a gun and shot her husband three times. The act was a purposeful killing, but Stone said a thorough review of the case, including a pattern of abuse over a number of years perpetrated on Walter by her husband and Walter’s mental condition, supported the manslaughter charge.

Taylor has said Walter was raped by her husband on different occasions.

“All the facts point that the defendant was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the act,” Taylor said.

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