a really ancient fatal attraction

[Hmph]

'I'd do it again': pistol-packing great-granny who killed 85-year-old beau

ATLANTA (AP) - Furious their romance was ending, a 78-year-old great-grandmother shot her 85-year-old ex-beau dead as he read the newspaper in a senior citizens home, police said.

"I did it and I'd do it again!" Lena Driskell yelled to officers who arrived at the home June 10, testimony showed. Police said Driskell was wearing a bathrobe and slippers, waving an antique handgun with her finger still on the trigger.

She is accused of plotting the shooting of Herman Winslow because she was angry their yearlong romance was ending and he had found another companion.

Driskell was released on a $25,000 bail and placed under house arrest after a hearing Friday. Fulton County Magistrate Richard Hicks stipulated she must wear an ankle monitor and live with her granddaughter Lena Holt.

"I don't want her on the streets," Hicks said.

"Who knows how many other guns she has?"

After a nasty breakup with Winslow, Driskell kept showing up uninvited at his apartment in Hightower Manor, a complex for seniors where they lived, Det. D.B. Mathis said. A security guard tried to calm her down but Driskell drew out her gun, pressed it to Winslow's head and fired up to four times, Mathis said.

At the hearing Friday, defence lawyer Deborah Poole stressed Driskell's clean criminal record and said she had had the gun since 1957.

"She's not a threat to anyone," Poole said.

Driskell whispered angrily to her lawyer when the detective recounted her confession.

Her granddaughter, who was named for her, said Driskell and Winslow had shared a bank account and a love for travelling

"What drove her to something like this is beyond me," a teary Holt said outside the courthouse.

"We have no control over what she did but we are very sorry," Holt said.

OK so you know I have questions...

1. was the sex that great? assuming they could find things or things still worked
2. in 20 more years would it have mattered, assuming she or he is still alive?
3. life is short enjoy each day you have left, in this case literally since they were living out the LAST days of their life.
4. you mean to tell me with all those other suitors in the same retirement home, she couldn't find nobody else?
5. I wonder what he was reading, my man was pretty leisurely about things, as if he was in some sort of retirement home or something. oh my bad, he was....
6. what happened to bingo? or card games?

[Makewayz]

Tamra, those questions are fierce mama!

But Ms. Daisy won't playing!!! She better work for making them know its a thin line between love and hate.

[Hmph]

@ Miss Daisy!!
man if grandma goes to prison, she's gonna be a problem for the guards given she overpowered one to take down her man.

[Makewayz]

I wonder if they have an elderly section in Birmingham Jail?

Maybe she'll be put in the same cell Martin Luther King, Jr. once dwelled.

Here's a letter he wrote years ago in confinement.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/a/x/a ... etter.html

[Hmph]

I guess that viagra must have been off the chain for grandma to flip her wig like that.

but she could have easily slipped some viagra into another person just laying around the retirement home and probably got same results or better
he wasn't the only spring chicken, oops I mean old rooster in town.

[Ricky]

I doubt grandma would have time for a long letter like that. Dr. King was looking towards the future. This lady should be thinking towards the end. But I see what you're saying Makewayz.

[Makewayz]

Whattup Ricky ... welcome to the board!

See yah around my dude!

[Vinnie]

OK so you know I have questions...

1. was the sex that great? assuming they could find things or things still worked
2. in 20 more years would it have mattered, assuming she or he is still alive?
3. life is short enjoy each day you have left, in this case literally since they were living out the LAST days of their life.
4. you mean to tell me with all those other suitors in the same retirement home, she couldn't find nobody else?
5. I wonder what he was reading, my man was pretty leisurely about things, as if he was in some sort of retirement home or something. oh my bad, he was....
6. what happened to bingo? or card games?

[Hmph]

well no surprise but she's been found guilty. I wonder if she'l get probation. because can you see her doing anything else at her age??

but I did have to laugh at her characterizing him as a player...at his age. maybe she confused bingo w/something else??

courttv.com - her pics there as well

Updated June 23, 2006, 7:06 p.m. ET

Woman, 79, guilty of murdering her 85-year-old beau in jealous rage

Lena Driskell was convicted on four counts for the 2005 shooting of her boyfriend, Herman Winslow.

By Bo Rosser
Court TV

ATLANTA - A jury convicted a 79-year-old woman of malice murder and three related counts for shooting her ex-boyfriend in the head during a jealous rage.

After deliberating for approximately three hours, the eight-woman, four-man jury rejected Lena Driskell's claim that she was insane when she shot Herman Winslow, the man she said bought her a car, took her on innumerable trips and threw her a birthday party during their 14-month relationship.

Driskell showed no reaction as the verdict was read. The jury also found Driskell guilty of felony murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Immediately after the verdict was announced, Judge Ural Glanville sentenced the septuagenarian to life in prison plus five years.

Driskell met Winslow when she moved into Hightower Manor, an assisted living facility where Winslow had lived for four years. After dodging his advances for months, Driskell said she finally gave in and began dating him. But almost a year and a half into their relationship, Driskell said, the 85-year-old began cheating on her and sneaking around with other women.

Winslow seduced them with lunch meat, sodas and peppermints, Driskell said during her testimony Thursday.

She claimed Winslow was a "Lothario" who was romancing so many women that it was as if he were running a "sex ring."

"If you love a person, you love one person," Driskell said. "You can't love no 40 or 50 people."

Defense attorney Deborah Poole said Driskell's tales of many other women were a delusion. Poole argued that a jealous episode involving a housekeeper had triggered something in Driskell and that she descended into madness.

"The 85-year-old super-stud senior citizen who serviced women from East Coast to West Coast, 40 and 50 women at a time, is a delusion," Poole said Friday. "Sorry, fellows, he doesn't exist."

During the three-day trial, prosecutors argued that Driskell was much too sharp to be insane. From the witness stand, the 79-year-old could remember intimate details of her life, including three former loves, since deceased. The only thing she said she could not remember was firing the gun that ended his life.

Assistant District Attorney Fani Willis told jurors during her closing argument Friday that an insanity plea was the defense's only option because there was an eyewitness to the June 10, 2005, murder.

That witness, a security guard at Hightower Manor, told jurors that Driskell shot Winslow four times in the head as he sat on a lobby couch wearing only his boxer shorts and a T-shirt.

Copyright 2006 Courtroom Television Network LLC. All Rights Reserved.

[MsNikaPooh]

I have been biting my tongue about this one for 2 years. This tripped me out the first time and everytime since. But seriously if I was one of his family members I would be suing the heck out of that nursing home cause Big Daddy(sry his nickname in the SWATS) had asked them to keep her away from his room. He was big pimpin in the retirement home didn't have to bring his new lady through the lobby in front of someone he already knew was halfway crazy.