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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Murder Defendant Portrayed As Victim Friends, Relatives Say Darlene Caba Was Abused By Her Husband

Darlene Caba’s face was so swollen and bruised that one acquaintance did not recognize her.

Caba’s son watched as she took blow after blow to the stomach, trapped in a headlock by his stepfather - James Caba Sr.

Donna Virnig saw the same man punch, kick and humiliate Caba as she cried for him to stop.

Darlene Caba, 50, is accused of shooting her husband to death. But on Wednesday, the seventh day of her second-degree murder trial, her family and friends portrayed her as the victim - not her dead husband.

“He had my mother in a headlock and he was beating her in the midsection,” Darlene Caba’s son, Chris Huston, said, describing an attack from his childhood. “I said ‘don’t hit her any more’ and he said, ‘do you want me to hit you instead?”’

James Caba’s relatives say they are upset that a dead man would now be made out to be the villain.

“My father was the one who was abused in my opinion,” said Jim Caba Jr., during an interview Wednesday. “Everything that she claims is backward.”

On Dec. 15, 1994, Kootenai County sheriff’s deputies found James Caba, 59, dead at the couple’s small home on Beauty Bay Road. Darlene Caba admits that she shot her husband once in the chest but contends she only picked up the gun because her husband was threatening her with a knife. She says the gun then accidentally fired.

Kootenai County prosecutors believe the use of the gun was excessive and have pointed out several inconsistencies in Caba’s story. And Jim Caba Jr. testified that he believes Darlene Caba shot his father two previous times before she finally killed him.

On Wednesday, Ethel Hylton, an acquaintance of the couple, talked of seeing Darlene several times with black eyes and bruises. She said James Caba even talked to her about the beatings.

“(He said) he was not going to beat her any more and he was going to try and make her happy,” Hylton said.

Virnig, Caba’s sister, said she had seen Darlene pushed and berated by her husband on her birthday.

Huston told the jury that his stepfather drank often and would become loud and abusive toward his mother and their children. But he also admitted that his mother drank excessively as well and could also become verbally abusive.

Darlene Caba called Huston shortly after shooting her husband in 1994.

“She said ‘Oh my God, there’s so much blood I don’t know what to do,” Huston testified Wednesday. He said his mother told him she didn’t mean to shoot her husband. She told her son that James Caba had threatened to cut her from ear to ear with a knife.

But deputy prosecutors Lansing Haynes and Scot Nass pointed out that Caba never told detectives that her husband had threatened to slit her throat. Huston also testified that his mother told him that James Caba had merely gasped a couple of times and died. But prosecutors say she told other people that after she shot her husband, James Caba cursed God and argued with her about whether to call 911.

Caba’s attorneys, Glen Walker and Suzanne Graham, have spent lengthy sessions grilling sheriff’s detectives who investigated the murder case. They have questioned the officers’ report-taking and interview methods, pointing out that Caba may have given different statements because she was questioned for hours with little food and after three days without sleep.

But Jim Caba Jr. contends it isn’t the first time his stepmother had made up stories about shooting his father.

Oregon police reports show that James Caba Sr. was shot through the back of the neck in 1980. And Kootenai County records show he was again shot in the leg in 1993. In both cases, James Caba was uncooperative with authorities and told them it was either an accident or suicide attempt.

But Jim Caba Jr. testified his father later told him that in both instances Darlene Caba had shot him during domestic disputes. He said his father lied to investigators in order to protect his wife.

“There’s only two people who know what happened” the night of the fatal shooting,” Jim Caba Jr. said Wednesday. “And he’s not here to stand up for himself.”

The trial is scheduled to continue today and may last into next week.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo