San Diego

A 70-year-old Scripps Ranch man was sentenced to two years in prison Thursday in the death of his wife, who fell and hit her head during an argument last fall.

Millard Fegan had pleaded guilty March 17 to involuntary manslaughter in the Oct. 23 incident in which he slapped his wife, Edna, 67, while they argued in their home. She died two weeks after she fell. The couple had been married 47 years.

“There was a confrontation and she was slapped,” said Michael McGlinn, Fegan’s lawyer. “In the course of that argument, she fell and hit her head.” He called the incident a tragedy and said the death was accidental.

“He never intended any great bodily harm or death to her,” McGlinn said. “All the friends that know them say they loved each other dearly.”

Superior Court Judge Herbert Exarhos also fined Fegan $500.

At the time of the plea, Deputy Dist. Atty. George Beall described the incident as a beating. But McGlinn said pathologists’ reports showed that Edna Fegan died of injuries on the right side of her head that could have been caused by a fall.