For the week of December 12 - 18, 2001

Defense contends motive was suicide

Woman charged with attempted 
murder of police officer’s wife

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By GREG MOORE
Express Staff Writer

An attorney for attempted murder defendant Gail J. High told a jury Tuesday that High went to the home of a police officer who had earlier arrested her for DUI not to shoot him or his wife, but to shoot herself.

"She was ready to end her life in a brutal and ugly and senseless way," attorney Keith Roark told the Fifth District Court jury in Hailey.

Gail High

Roark said High, distraught over the effect a DUI conviction would have on her plans to become a police officer herself, sought to exact her revenge on Ketchum Police Sgt. Dave Kassner "by going to his home and putting a gun to her head and leaving her brains and blood all over his front steps so that every time he came home he would have a reminder of what happened to her."

Roark said High, 39, has had a history of suicidal tendencies for some time.

High, a former employee of the Sun Valley Police Department, is charged with the attempted second-degree murder of Kassner’s wife, Colleen Kassner, felony aggravated assault for firing a gun during a struggle with the Kassner’s renter, John Straka, and felony burglary.

During opening statements at the start of an expected three-day trial, both sides agreed on most of the facts surrounding High’s actions.

"The question is not what Gail High did, but why she did what she did," Roark said.

Deputy Attorney General J. Scott James, prosecuting the case due to a legal conflict of interest for local prosecutors, contended that High went to the Kassner home in Hulen Meadows, north of Ketchum, on Dec. 16, 2000, to kill Colleen Kassner and fired a shot to threaten Straka.

Dave Kassner testified that he had arrested High about 9 p.m. that evening after he stopped to talk to her while she was driving on a Ketchum street, detected an odor of alcohol on her breath and administered a breath test, which she failed. He said a taxi was called to take High to her home in Elkhorn.

Both James and Raork stated that High took the taxi home, but picked up a .40-caliber Glock handgun there and asked the same cab driver to take her to the Kassner home. She was met at the door of the house by Straka, who testified that he invited her in after she asked if Dave was home. The two stepped into an entryway common to both the house and Straka’s apartment.

Straka said High was sobbing, and he wondered if she was bringing some bad news to the family. He said he reached outside to ring the doorbell to try to awaken Mrs. Kassner. When he turned back, he said, he saw High facing the Kassner’s door holding the gun above her right shoulder, pointed into the air. He said he immediately grabbed her hand and the gun with his left hand and pushed her back with his right.

During the struggle to bring High to the ground, the gun fired once. Straka said he did not have his hand on the trigger.

Sgt. Kassner testified that by coincidence, he arrived home shortly after the shot was fired, intending to take a "lunch" break on his graveyard shift. He said he entered the home after seeing his wife gesturing frantically from the doorway. Following a struggle, he placed High in handcuffs.

Kassner said he found a bullet hole in the garage door jamb, opposite the doorway into the Kassner residence, about one and one-half inches above floor level.

Straka said that during the struggle with High, he heard her say that "Dave had taken the most important thing in her life away from her." However, upon cross examination by Roark, he said that High said nothing about exacting revenge by taking something from Sgt. Kassner, nor had she asked to see Mrs. Kassner. Upon questioning by James, he acknowledged that she said nothing about suicide, either.

Kassner testified that a safety feature of the Glock gun requires its trigger to be pulled quite deliberately for the gun to fire.

Both attorneys said they plan to wrap up their presentations by Thursday afternoon.

 

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