Her Grief Leaves No Time for Bitterness : Tonya Moore, Still in Pain, Recalls Marriage’s Best Days

The words flowed in whispers, but her tears spoke louder.

They rolled from the drowsy eyes of Tonya Moore as she recalled her husband, Donnie, the former Angel reliever who fired three bullets into her last Tuesday before killing himself.

“He had a lot of problems, but I still love him,” Tonya Moore said from her hospital bed, an inch-long scar visible on her neck where she said one of the bullets penetrated. “He was a sweet guy.”

This was the same man who, according to relatives, she had quarreled with frequently in recent months. Donnie Moore, 35, had become deeply depressed after being cut in June by the Kansas City Royals’ triple-A team in Omaha, according to the family’s lawyer.

Yet Tonya Moore, also 35, said that she is not bitter about the shootings. In an interview at Kaiser Permanente’s Anaheim Medical Center, Moore preferred to talk of the husband she remembered from happier days.

She alluded to her husband’s “problems” but would not elaborate except to say that he would not discuss them. Donnie Moore kept his problems to himself, she said. “Donnie wasn’t like normal people,” she said.

Donnie Moore reached the pinnacle of his 13-year major league career when he received a three-year, $3-million contract from the Angels in 1986.

But he was dogged by a single pitch. With the Angels one strike away from the 1986 World Series, he gave up a home run to Dave Henderson in Game 5 of the American League playoffs and the Boston Red Sox went on to win the Series. After that, Moore’s fortunes declined.

Tonya Moore said she remembers every detail of the shooting. But this was not the time for such memories, she said softly. Maybe next week, but not now.

She denied reports that the couple had had a major dispute about selling their 1.5-acre estate in Anaheim Hills.

Over the past week, she said, some days have been harder than others. Sunday was especially difficult, since she had been unable to attend memorial services in Santa Ana the day before and knew she was too weak to travel to Lubbock, Tex., for Tuesday’s funeral.

“My Donnie was leaving,” she said, holding back tears. “I thought I wasn’t going to get to see him.”

Family attorney Randall Johnson of Santa Ana said that to help her, he arranged to have Moore’s body brought to the hospital. The body was delivered to a vacant room at the hospital, and Tonya Moore was wheeled from her private room.

“I contacted the mortuary and told them Tonya was unable to come to the funeral services,” he said, adding that at the hospital, “she was able to see him. . . . (Hospital workers) were kind enough to bring him into a private room.”

Moore said the viewing gave her a chance to express her love--and forgiveness.

“I told him I forgive him,” she said, laboring with each word and in obvious pain from the .45-caliber bullets that had pierced her lungs, stomach and neck. “I told him I love him. I asked, ‘Why?’ ”

She strained to talk above the sounds of the equipment next to her bed. Her eyelids were heavy, and she dabbed them often with tissue grasped tightly in her left hand, particularly when she recalled her fondest memories of her husband.

Those remembrances were of a sportsman and family man. She said that when he went on an overnight fishing trip or on the road with the Angels, “he called once every day, (sometimes) twice a day, three times a day.”

Despite Donnie Moore’s millionaire salary, Johnson said, the family now is having financial problems.

“A lot of things are coming out of the woodwork, now that Donnie’s dead,” the attorney said.

So far, he said, no one has contributed to a trust fund he established for the Moore family.

“Zero--I have gotten absolutely nothing,” Johnson said. “I’m pretty shocked. I’m beginning to think people thought this guy had this $3-million contract, and maybe the guy doesn’t need any more. I’m here to say they have financial problems.”

Tonya Moore made no mention of family finances, preferring to speak only of Donnie, whom she married in 1973.

The telephone rang several times, and she dutifully answered. The calls were from friends and fans alike, wishing to send condolences or cheer her up. She was so weak that she appeared to have trouble returning the receiver to its cradle.

Others sent bouquets--some topped with cheery balloons--that crowded one side of the room.

By evening, she was feeling a little better.

“I have friends with me, and family,” she said.

She added that she still didn’t know when she would get out of the hospital but said, “All I want to do is get well, be with my kids and go on with my life.”