Report: Lawyer killed wife by accident

Police say little about shooting of executive near Piedmont Park.

Prominent Atlanta business executive Diane McIver was accidentally shot and killed as the SUV in which she was riding passed by Piedmont Park in the waning hours of Sunday night, according to a report late Thursday.

The unwitting gunman: her husband, Atlanta lawyer Claud “Tex” McIver.

The Fulton Daily Report, a publication specializing in news about the legal community, reported that McIver inadvertently killed her. He was on the lookout for carjackers when the shooting occurred, the publication reported. They cited a family spokesman, Bill Crane. Reached by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Crane declined to confirm the account.

The McIvers owned a farm in rural Putnam County about 90 miles east of Atlanta. They hired a driver – so far, unidentified – to bring them back to their Buckhead home Sunday evening, the publication reported. Diane McIver sat in the front passenger seat; her husband settled in the seat behind her. Their ride, a 2013 Ford Expedition, headed back toward Atlanta.

The driver exited at Edgewood Avenue to avoid a traffic jam on the Downtown Connector, the paper

reported. After some wrong turns, it wound up on Piedmont Avenue. Fearing a carjacking, McIver armed himself with a handgun in the SUV, according to the article. It went off, injuring his wife.

The driver rushed the wounded passenger to Emory University Hospital on Clifton Road, Crane said. There, Diane McIver died just a few minutes before 1 a.m. Monday.

The account of what happened highlights a case in which officials have remained nearly silent. The Atlanta police released an incident report of the shooting Wednesday, more than two days after officers responded to the call.

The report had few details. It did not list who was in the SUV, other than Diane McIver. An officer talked to the driver, but didn’t include in the report what the driver said. Nor did the report say why the driver took the injured woman to a hospital on Clifton Road, 4 ½ miles away. Piedmont Hospital is less than half that distance from the shooting scene.

Investigators want to be thorough, a police spokesman said Thursday.

“This is one of those situations we’re working through very slowly,” police Sgt. Warren Pickard said. “We want to get it right.”

The Fulton District Attorney’s Office declined comment on whether any charges are pending.

Diane McIver, whom one associate described as “extremely intellectual,” made a successful career as president of Corey Airport Services, an Atlanta-based marketing company.

Her husband, a partner in his firm, is vice president of the Georgia State Election Board.

In August, he assumed another seat on another board. The American Bar Association appointed him to the advisory committee of the association’s Standing Committee on Gun Violence.