CATE, Garry - Fountain County INGenWeb Project

  Mrs. Cate told the jury earlier this week that she shot her husband in self-defense after he had threatened to kill her, pointed a muzzle-loading rifle at her and pulled the trigger.

  In describing the scene before she shot her husband, Mrs. Cate said there had been an argument over a girlfriend of her husband’s who had supposedly been at the house that day. Mrs. Cate said she had gone to work as usual, but came home after trying to call the house and finding the line busy.

  She said her husband told her he had been seeing the woman about two months. Mrs. Cate testified that she knocked her husband down and hit him with a coal bucket. The two then decided to get a divorce, she said, and went to a lawyer’s office. Later, they both went to her husband’s girlfriend’s house to talk to her.

  After Kenneth Freed, president of Harrison Steel Casting Company, the victim’s employer and friend, stopped by the Cate house, she said her husband went into a rage and accused her of seeing another man.

  After Cate went outside she testified that she took a .22 caliber pistol from the gun cabinet and inserted one shell in the chamber and laid it down in the kitchen. She said when her husband came back into the house she tried to call his doctor but he pointed a muzzleloader at her and pulled the trigger. The gun did not fire. She said she then shot him with the pistol.

  After the shooting Mrs. Cate said she called the police, then applied a cold cloth to her husband’s wound. The victim was taken to a hospital where he died.

  The prosecution in the case pictured Judy Cate as a domineering woman, called by Prosecutor James Bunch as “the man of the family in almost every sense of the word.” The defense wanted to convince the jury that Mrs. Cate’s husband had threatened her life on different occasions and that she shot him in self-defense.

  Attica police officer Tim Quinn testified early in the trial that Mrs. Cate told him after he arrived at the scene that she and her husband had argued and she shot him because she was afraid of him shooting her with the rifle. He also said she told him they were getting a divorce, but she wouldn’t consent because there was another woman.

  Attica attorney Steve Morrison testified that the couple had come to his office November 20 to file for divorce and had decided on a division of property, except for household goods. He said that they had agreed to give custody of the two children to Mr. Cate.

  Dr. Richard Rahdert, a psychiatrist working with patients at Wabash Valley Hospital in West Lafayette, told the jury he had treated the victim and that Cate had told him he had marriage problems. Ron Knabel, director of the Fountain-Warren Mental Health Center in Attica, testified that Cate had told him he had been sexually involved with another woman and wanted a divorce. He also said Cate told him he was afraid his wife would kill him.

  Pam Wilson admitted to the court that she was the “other woman” in the victim’s life. She said she had received a call from Cate the morning of the shooting, saying he wanted to see her. She later called back to the Cate house and said Mrs. Cate got on the extension and made “nasty comments”.

  Later, Mrs. Wilson said the Cates came to her apartment, but that they mostly talked among themselves. She said at one point the victim asked her to marry him but she told him she would not. She said Cate left and his wife then talked to her about her first marriage, saying her husband had beaten her. Mrs. Wilson said Mrs. Cate told her she had once tied up her husband and beat him.

  Judy McLin, fiancée of Cate’s brother Ernie, told the court Mrs. Cate told her she was tired of being a housewife and wanted a life of her own. But she also said Mrs. Cate had warned her husband against seeking a divorce last July. She testified that Mrs. Cate was domineering in the couple’s relationship and once told him she would “blow his head off” if he tried to divorce her.

  An Attica physician, Dr. Hugo Brenner, testified that he had treated Cate on November 6 and he appeared scared and nervous, with childish behavior. The doctor said he felt the victim had an acute mental disorder. It was he who arranged for Cate to go to the mental health center.

  Judge Vincent Grogg, presiding in the case, refused to allow a respiratory therapist from Williamsport Community Hospital to testify before the jury. With the jury out of the courtroom, Cindy Griesly said Cate had cried, “Help me, help me. Please help me. My wife shot me. She shot me. Murder…”

 

William Cate, a brother of the victim, was called to the stand by the defense. He said Mrs. Cate said she wanted to have sex with him. Another brother, Ernie, testified that Cate told him he carried a life insurance policy of over $150,000 to put his daughter through medical college. The two brothers filed for guardianship of the Cate’s children, April, 16, and Brian, 14. Defense attorneys said the children refused to sign the consent form, but instead chose their grandmother as guardian. The attorneys pointed out that the children would receive $857 a month in Social Security benefits.  – thanks so much to “S”