DOCUMENT: Crime

Wife, 87, Shoots "Cheating" Husband, 88

Woman believed her beau was "stepping out"

Gun

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Elderly Affair Shooting

NOVEMBER 7--Convinced that her 88-year-old husband was having an affair with her hairdresser, a Missouri woman, 87, shot her spouse in the arm with his own gun, police report.

According to a Springfield Police Department probable cause statement, Peter Desjardins told cops that his wife, Dorothy, told him Saturday evening that the woman who does her hair had claimed to be having an affair with him. He denied the allegation and told his wife that the only time he saw the hairdresser was during her beauty appointments.

After arguing in their living room, Peter retreated to the bedroom. Dorothy then “walked into the room with her walker, sat down on the bed that was next to his, and began to throw books at him.” After running out of volumes, she picked up his .22 Ruger and started “flinging the revolver around in the air” before pulling back the hammer and fired a shot.

Desjardins was struck in the arm, which he had raised in front of his face.

As first reported by KSPR’s Ron Davis, Dorothy, pictured in the above mug shot, allegedly told police that she only “intended to scare the shit out of him” and “just went a little bit beserk” since “he was stepping out on me, and I just got pissed off.”

Luckily for Peter, the Ruger was not loaded with bullets, but instead discharged “fine grain pellets,” ammo that can be used to kill small animals and reptiles. A doctor told cops that Peter did not sustain any serious vascular damage in the shooting, adding that surgery would not be performed to remove the birdshot lodged in his forearm.

Charged with felony domestic assault, Dorothy Desjardins remains locked up in the Greene County jail on $5000 bond. (2 pages)