Man arrested after wife shot

A 74-year-old Colbert man with memory problems was arrested Monday in connection with a shooting earlier in the day that left his wife critically injured.

In a jailhouse interview, white-haired Art Prichard said he doesn’t know what injured his wife, 72-year-old Loretta L. Prichard. But he thinks whatever it was also may have been responsible for cutting off the tip of the middle finger of his left hand.

Prichard’s hand was bandaged and oozing blood as he spoke.

He said he and his wheelchair-bound wife got up early and had some breakfast. Then she wanted to go to the living room.

“I was pushing her and, all of a sudden, BAM! It shot up in the air. Whatever it was, it shot up in the air. No lie. And it took my finger off.”

Prichard said his wife was struck in the back of the head.

“I felt so bad,” he said. “I tried to wake her up, and she wouldn’t wake up. She was still out. I couldn’t wake her up.”

So, Prichard said, he drove to his next-door neighbors’ house, about 80 feet away, for help.

Firefighters were called to the couple’s ranch house on North Panorama Road about 5 a.m. on a report that a woman had fallen, said Spokane County Sheriff’s Sgt. Jim Goodwin.

After arriving, fire crews requested law enforcement, and Loretta Prichard was found to have suffered a gunshot wound, Goodwin said. She was flown by helicopter to Deaconess Medical Center where she was in critical condition late Monday.

“It really came out as a medic call,” Goodwin said. “We were told originally that she had fallen out of bed.”

Art Prichard was arrested on a domestic violence-related charge of third-degree assault and booked into the Spokane County Jail. The charge could be changed if Loretta Prichard dies, Goodwin said.

Goodwin declined to say what kind of gun was involved or why the charge was selected.

Prichard said Monday night that he had no idea why he was arrested, although he presumed it had something to do with his wife’s injury.

“I didn’t shoot her,” he said. “I didn’t have a gun. I wouldn’t shoot my wife, anyway. I love my wife.”

He said he owns four .45-caliber handguns, but they were locked in a drawer. His several hunting rifles were locked away as well, Prichard said. “I’m real careful with guns, honest,” he said.

Prichard said he remembered the morning’s events clearly, but he had difficulty remembering some of the most intimate details of his life.

He couldn’t remember his wife’s maiden name or where she grew up, even though he said they had been married since he was somewhere between 15 and 20 years old.

“I’m not sure where it was, but I know we got married,” he said. “I know that for a fact. …

“I went over to my friend’s house and I saw her and, right away, we got married.”

He said he grew up in Great Falls, Mont., and moved to Spokane when he was 12.

Prichard said he believes he and his wife have lived in their home about 50 years, but at first he couldn’t remember what either of them did for a living.

“Now I can’t think of what I did. I worked really hard. It was hard working, I can tell you that.”

It was some sort of physical labor, he thought. Then it came to him as if by accident.

“I worked at it for a long time until they closed down, and then I went to another packing house and worked on that until it closed down,” he said. “And then I went to another and worked on that until it closed down. I went through three of them.”

But the most he could remember about his wife’s job is that it involved talking to people.

“She talked to people, even overseas,” Prichard said. “She talked German a little bit, see.”

He said he believes she has been confined to a wheelchair about 50 years because she couldn’t use her left foot. But he didn’t know what was wrong with her foot.