Opening statements
Attorneys focus on Bob Ward’s phone call to authorities
in the second trial of Bob Ward describe his phone call to authorities after the killing of his wife, Diane.
With the financial crisis in full swing and the liquidation of their real estate business looming, Bob and Diane Ward’s Isleworth home in 2009 had turned into a highpressure “boiler room,” Assistant State Attorney Will Jay told an Orange County jury Wednesday.
“There was this argument,” Jay said. “Over what? Who knows.”
Exactly what happened between Bob and Diane Ward on Sept. 21, 2009, remains unclear. But Bob Ward called authorities that evening and repeatedly said, “I just shot my wife.”
“She’s dead,” he said in the call. “She’s done. I’m sorry.”
Bob Ward is facing a second-degree murder charge for a second time. He was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to 30 years in prison, but that verdict was later overturned when the trial judge ruled his attorney failed to object to evidence relating to his right to remain silent.
His new trial began Wednesday. Judge Leticia Marques told jurors it will last about two weeks. Ward was allowed out of jail on a $1 million bond as he waited for his second trial.
Ward’s new attorney, Craig Gillen, told jurors that investigators may have been “sloppy” at times as they collected evidence.
“In that same call [to law enforcement], where he was stunned and shocked, he expressed that it was an accident. A tragic, tragic accident,” Gillen said. “An accident is not a crime.”
Bob and Diane Ward were married 26 years and raised two daughters, Mallory and Sarah. Bob Ward ran a real estate business which went into bankruptcy as the economy crashed in the late 2000s. Clients began bringing allegations of fraud, records show.
Diane Ward was scheduled to testify about the business at a hearing three days after she was killed, Jay said. In his opening statement, he told jurors about her diagnoses of depression and anxiety, even before there were problems with the business.
After his first conviction, Bob Ward told a Channel 13 news reporter that he fell asleep on a patio and woke up not knowing where Diane was. He said he went to the bedroom and suddenly saw his wife behind him with a gun. They struggled over it, and the gun fired, he said.
Orange County deputies found Diane Ward on the ground in her bedroom, near her husband’s side of the bed. On a patio outside, they found a broken glass, spilled red wine, and a cigar that was left lit on a chair, Jay said.
Bob Ward had a red wine stain on the back of his shirt. He told deputies that he did not know how it got there and only found it when he went to a bathroom at the Sheriff ’s Office, Jay said.