Man Shot by Wife After Acquittal on Charge He Beat Her

A woman whose husband had just been acquitted of beating her pulled a gun in the courthouse lobby Thursday and shot and critically wounded him, authorities said. She also fired two shots at his lawyer but missed.

“You read the news and see it happens in California and all over, but you’d never think it’d happen in our little parish here,” said Sgt. W. E. McGehee, spokesman for the Washington Parish sheriff’s office in rural southeastern Louisiana.

He said that Irene B. Burch, 49, was held in lieu of $525,000 bond after being booked on two counts of attempted murder. Her husband, James E. Burch, was in critical condition at Riverside Medical Center in Franklinton and was being treated for a gunshot wound in the back, McGehee said.