Witnesses Tell of Couple’s Fights Preceding Slaying : Violence: Before Denise Wallace was shot to death, she and her estranged husband--charged with her murder--sparred publicly on several occasions.

In the weeks before she was shot to death, Denise Wallace and her husband, Allen, had violent fights, their sparring often spilling out into the neighborhoods where they lived, acquaintances of the couple said Friday.

“There was one Sunday where he was getting into the car, and they were yelling and screaming,” recalled a neighbor at a Placentia apartment house where the Wallaces lived from the middle of November to mid-December.

“She told him not to get in the car, and he just gunned it and almost backed over her,” said the woman, who requested anonymity. “She had a rake in her hand, and she just smashed it through his back window.”

Police say it all culminated in the death of Denise Wallace on Thursday as she and her husband were inches apart in separate cars stopped in the 1800 block of South Jacalene Lane in Anaheim.

Authorities allege that Allen E. Wallace shot her repeatedly with a pistol. Denise Wallace had obtained a restraining order against her spouse after he allegedly fired a shotgun at her parents’ house.

Wallace, 52, a former machine shop owner, has been charged with murder. He remains in Anaheim City Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Monday.

Domestic violence experts said Friday that while there have been some high-profile cases where husbands have killed their wives despite restraining orders, the court orders in almost all cases stop abusive spouses from further violence.

“In the vast majority of cases, those women with restraining orders obtain the ability as victims to lead new lives free from violence and gain custody of their children,” said Barbara Phillips, director of the Victim Witness Assistance Program, an Orange County nonprofit group that helps battered wives. “But victims do need to remember that it is only a piece of paper and that it will not protect you from the pierce of a knife, the bullets of a gun or the pummeling of fists.”

Anaheim police first arrested Wallace on Dec. 18 after he allegedly fired a shotgun blast at his in-laws’ home, which is about two blocks from where Thursday’s shooting occurred. Wallace posted $10,000 bail the next day and was released.

Two days later, Denise Wallace went to Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana and received a temporary restraining order that required her husband to stay 100 yards from her, her parents, her 8-year-old son from a previous marriage and an office building where she was receiving counseling.

In court documents, she wrote that the same day as the shooting at her parents’ house, Wallace threatened her with a shotgun and a pocketknife at the Community Psychiatric Centers in Santa Ana.

Center administrators refused to comment on the case, but a secretary there said that while she didn’t see any weapons, she did see the couple fighting in the parking lot Dec. 18.

“He was hitting her and she was saying ‘Get away from me!’ and ‘Leave me alone!’ ” said the woman, who did not give her name. “It was a ferocious fight.”

Anaheim police said they did what they could by arresting Wallace after the shotgun incident at the parents’ house, but once he made bail there was little else they could do, even with the restraining order.

“We can’t be with everyone all of the time,” Sgt. Chet Barry said. “We feel terrible right now, but with the sheer volume of complaints we get each day all we can do is look into each one and try to evaluate the people involved.

“But after he made bail, there was nothing more we could do until he did something else and (Thursday) he did something else.”