Plea Bargain Reached for Woman Who Shot Brother

In a plea bargain arrangement, a Sunday school teacher and former Vista Crime Prevention Commission member pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter Tuesday in the 1985 shooting death of her brother.

Defense attorney Charles Goldberg said he hopes that “unusual facts” in the case would favor 49-year-old Evanna Cavanaugh when Vista Superior Court Judge Herbert Hoffman passes sentence June 23.

Cavanaugh was charged with first-degree murder in the case, in which prosecutors contended that she planned to kill her 44-year-old brother, Charles Phegley, who had a history of mental illness and violent behavior toward family members.

The shooting occurred at their mother’s Leucadia home in November, 1985, after Cavanaugh and her brother became embroiled in an argument over a check from a piece of rental property they owned jointly.

Claimed Self-Defense

Goldberg has maintained that Cavanaugh shot her brother in self-defense. He says that Cavanaugh brought a loaded .38-caliber pistol to her mother’s house so the elderly woman could protect herself from Phegley, who was living in a guest house on the property.

Despite winning pretrial motions to suppress a tape-recorded confession by Cavanaugh and an unusual microcassette recording of the shooting, Goldberg had been unsuccessful in having the murder charge thrown out on grounds of alleged police misconduct.

Goldberg claimed that, because the investigators allegedly entered the shooting scene illegally, evidence there--such as the pistol and wounds to Phegley’s body--should be inadmissible.

But Hoffman ruled that the officers were not involved in the commission of the crime and any charges of misconduct do not affect Cavanaugh’s defense. He denied a Goldberg motion to suppress key evidence, including a recording of a telephone call that a frantic Cavanaugh made to a 911 operator.

Right to Appeal

Under the plea bargain, Goldberg retained the right to appeal the ruling. Goldberg will decide whether to appeal after sentencing.

On Tuesday, Goldberg said he thought Cavanaugh’s family was glad the plea bargain had been struck.

“It gives the judge the option of probation if it’s appropriate,” Goldberg said. “We were hopeful that the judge would find that the unusual facts in the case would justify a grant of probation.”

Goldberg said that by “unusual” he meant Phegley’s mental illness and violent rages. Cavanaugh “did feel like she was being attacked,” Goldberg said.

The maximum sentence for voluntary manslaughter is 11 years.

In January, Hoffman tossed out a tape-recorded confession Cavanaugh made to police shortly after the slaying. The judge ruled that officers pressured her into the statement after Cavanaugh had asked for an attorney.

Again in January, Hoffman threw out a critical tape recording that revealed Cavanaugh had fired five shots at her brother. The recording, made on a microcassette tape recorder in Cavanaugh’s purse, was suppressed as evidence because sheriff’s detectives failed to obtain a search warrant, Hoffman ruled.