Judge bars deputy from wife’s funeral
Bond condition comes after lawman was charged with murder in her death
A Harris County sheriff ’s deputy accused of killing his wife will not be allowed to attend her funeral, a judge ruled on Friday.
Renard Leon Spivey, 63, appeared in court for the first time since the shooting death on Sunday of his wife, Patricia Marshall. Limping slightly, Spivey arrived at the arraignment flanked by a slew of family members and supporters.
The lawman — who first joined the Harris County Sheriff’s Office in 1996 — is accused of shooting Marshall, his wife of four years, at their home in south Houston. When authorities arrived at the couple’s home, they found Marshall’s body in the closet, shot twice, and Spivey, bleeding from a wound to his thigh.
Spivey told investigators he and Marshall had been arguing “all day” and the shooting occurred while he and his wife were “tussling” over a gun.
Spivey was arrested on Monday and booked into the Harris County Jail and released several days later, court records show.
Prosecutors initially asked Spivey’s bail be set at $100,000 or more and that he be required to submit to electronic monitoring and a strict curfew, court records show. His bail was later reduced to $50,000.
In court on Friday, defense attorney Mike DeGeurin and a prosecutor in the case haggled over other bond conditions.
In deliberations with the two lawyers, Judge Jason Luong acknowledged the case was an “unusual situation” — particularly Spivey’s desire to attend his wife’s funeral, a request which out
raged Marshall’s relatives — before forbidding the lawman from attending.
“He doesn’t have a right to go,” Luong said.
The judge ordered Spivey to have electronic monitoring and to abstain from alcohol or drugs, and turn over any firearms in his possession. Luong also ordered him confined to his home with a curfew from 3 p.m. to 9 a.m., with exceptions if he needed to attend medical appointments or issues related to his work. He was also ordered to turn over his passport within seven days.
The judge also ordered Spivey and his relatives not to have any contact with his deceased wife’s family.
After the short hearing, DeGeurin said his client would abide by the judge’s conditions, though he had hoped to attend his wife’s funeral.
“If your wife died, and you were trying to plan a funeral, and you’re not mad at her or her family, and they’re mad at you, in the long run, if you didn’t go to the funeral, your own wife’s funeral, it’s awful,” he said as Spivey, dressed in a burntorange, checkered suit jacket, stood behind him, occasionally twisting a handkerchief in his left hand. “Of course he’d want to participate in the funeral, but he’s going to follow the judge’s order.”
Before the shooting, the lawman had worked for 23 years at the Harris County Sheriff ’s Office, first as a jailer and then as a patrol deputy. Spivey also spent four years working as an actor on the syndicated television show “Justice for All with Judge Cristina Perez” as the court’s bailiff.