Ex-deputy retried in 1992 shooting of woman

Paper: Houston Chronicle
Date: WED 3/20/02

By CAROL CHRISTIAN
Staff

A former Harris County sheriff's deputy returned to district court Tuesday to stand trial again on charges that he murdered a woman almost 10 years ago.

Joseph Kent McGowen, 36, is accused of shooting Susan Diane Harrison White on Aug. 25, 1992, at her northwest Harris County home after she complained about him and he allegedly obtained a fake warrant for her arrest.

Defense lawyer Dan Cogdell said McGowen had gone to White 's house on orders to investigate reports that she had threatened a friend of her son.

McGowen, who confronted White alone in an upstairs bedroom, told investigators at the time that he fired when the woman pointed a pistol at him.

Just before she was shot, another deputy heard McGowen say "drop the gun" three times, Cogdell told the jury Tuesday.

McGowen's 1994 murder conviction was overturned on the grounds that his lawyer was not allowed to make an opening statement at his first trial .

The 14th Court of Appeals in April 1997 threw out his initial conviction and 15-year prison sentence and said McGowen should get a new trial .

Prior to the shooting, McGowen had arrested White 's 17-year-old son, Jason Aguilar, on a gun-related charge.

Prosecutor Ed Porter told the jury Tuesday in his opening statement that White told McGowen's supervisor the deputy had arrested her son because she had refused his advances.

Cogdell said in his opening statement that although Aguilar had been in trouble with the law and had become known to deputies as "cocky" and "arrogant," White could see no wrong in her son.

On the day White was shot, McGowen and two other deputies went to her home in the 3400 block of Amber Forest in the Northgate Forest subdivision to arrest her on retaliation charges, police said at the time.

When the deputies arrived about 12:30 a.m., White refused to let them in and called 911, Porter said.

McGowen told investigators that White had a gun in her right hand and pointed it at him. Testimony in his first trial showed she was left-handed.

In his opening statement, Porter suggested that contradiction refuted the idea that the deputy would have killed in self-defense.

Cogdell, however, said in his opening statement that the jury would hear witnesses say that White was adept at using her right hand.

A representative of the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office testified Tuesday that White was shot in the face, the chest and the right arm. Dr. Dwayne Wolf also said the angle of the wound in her arm was not consistent with her right arm being raised.