1990 Shooting Ruled Accident Is Reinvestigated : Inquiry: The wife of a former state narcotics agent was fatally wounded by her husband. Her family believes it was murder.

At the request of the Orange County Grand Jury, the district attorney’s office has reopened a homicide case which sheriff’s deputies had quickly closed after concluding that a former state narcotics agent accidentally killed his wife while cleaning a pistol in their San Juan Capistrano home.

For the past several months, investigators have been looking into the death of Yvonne R. Clarke, who was shot once in the back of the head with a .45-caliber automatic at close range on Oct. 28, 1990, as she worked inside her office.

Less than a day after the shooting, sheriff’s homicide detectives decided the death was accidental. On Nov. 2, 1990, the coroner’s division of the Sheriff’s Department reached the same conclusion, according to Clarke’s death certificate.

Members of Clarke’s family and their private investigator told The Times last week that the case was reopened after they gave the grand jury new information about the shooting and Clarke’s husband, Robert R. Clarke, 48, a former special agent and task force supervisor with the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement.

Mike Madigan, a private investigator based in the El Toro area who looked into the matter for Clarke’s relatives, said: “From all that I know about this case, it just seems to me like law enforcement has given him one free shot. It was all it took to end her life and change his.”

Madigan and Yvonne Clarke’s father, Robert D. Grisanti of San Gabriel, say there are a number of important factors leading them to believe Clarke’s death was not accidental and to seriously question the thoroughness of the Sheriff’s Department investigation.

Of particular significance, they say, are Robert Clarke’s psychological problems, marital discord, the couple’s growing concern about their finances before the shooting, and what appears to be an earlier attempt by Clarke to strangle his wife. Much of that was found by Madigan after sheriff’s deputies had concluded their case.

Despite repeated efforts, neither Clarke nor his attorney, David Thurber, could be reached for comment. But in court documents, they have maintained that the fatal shooting was an accident.

The renewed investigation is the latest development in Robert and Viola Grisanti’s lengthy effort to clear up nagging doubts about exactly what happened on that fateful day 2 1/2 years ago, when the pistol in their son-in-law’s hand discharged, mortally wounding their daughter.

To compel a thorough airing of the facts, the Grisantis and Yvonne Clarke’s surviving son, Robbie, have filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit against Robert Clarke, the Sheriff’s Department, the state Department of Justice and Coltec Industries Inc., the maker of Robert Clarke’s .45-caliber Colt Commander pistol.

Sheriff’s officials have declined to discuss the situation because the agency’s policies prohibit deputies from discussing active lawsuits against the department. Likewise, the district attorney’s office has declined to discuss the reopened investigation.

In 1991, the family made an initial appeal to the district attorney’s office, which reviewed the sheriff’s investigative reports and concluded that there was not enough evidence to support filing a murder charge.

In May of that year, county officials rejected the Grisantis’ claim for $10 million in damages on the grounds that an internal investigation determined that the Sheriff’s Department was not negligent in its handling of the case.

Not satisfied with those in-house investigations, Robert Grisanti said, he and Madigan presented the results of their inquiry to the county grand jury in August last year. The matter eventually was referred to the panel’s Criminal Justice Committee, and Dist. Atty. Investigator David Tuttle was assigned to the case.

“We don’t believe what (they say) happened, and we don’t believe Robert Clarke,” Robert Grisanti said. “We don’t understand how the gun went off and hit her in the perfect spot. Why would a trained law enforcement officer, with substantial knowledge about firearms, make such a tragic mistake?”

Yvonne Clarke, 42, a writer who worked for a now-defunct windsurfing publication, was shot in the afternoon as she worked at her computer in the small upstairs office of her home on Via Estancia.

According to sheriff’s reports, Robert Clarke was preparing to clean his gun on a coffee table a few feet behind his wife when the weapon unexpectedly discharged.

He told investigators that he had stored his pistol with the hammer cocked and the safety switch on. As he readied the gun for cleaning, he said, his thumb slipped off the hammer as he released the safety and was pulling on the trigger.

Since it was his practice not to keep a bullet in the gun’s chamber, he said, he did not check to see if it was loaded, except for removing the magazine and inspecting it.

In their reports, sheriff’s deputies said they found cloth cleaning patches, solvent, a ram rod and barrel brush on the office coffee table, which is consistent with Robert Clarke’s story.

Also, transcripts of a 911 emergency call made to county dispatchers immediately after the shooting suggest that Robert Clarke was almost hysterical and clearly anguished about his wife. One source familiar with the case who requested anonymity said he doubted that he was acting.

Since the shooting, however, the Grisantis and Madigan say they have found a number of significant factors that were either overlooked, or should have been discovered by sheriff’s investigators had they been more diligent.

“I don’t believe the district attorney was ever given the full story by the Sheriff’s Department,” Madigan said. “I believe sheriff’s deputies investigated this case in a prejudicial manner. They believed a fellow officer, and shut down their case. That is not the way it’s supposed to be. I think with the new investigation, I’m confident the district attorney will now get the full story.”

Although Robert Clarke claimed to have had a good relationship with his wife, Madigan said he found evidence of marital discord, including love affairs and the loss of employment by both Yvonne and Robert Clarke amid substantial financial obligations.

According to records presented to the grand jury, those include numerous credit card debts, a $1,300-a-month mortgage and child support payments Robert Clarke had to make from a previous marriage.

After the shooting, Madigan said, Robert Clarke collected at least $200,000 from a life insurance policy that could have eased the financial burden substantially.

Just as significant in the family’s quest, Robert Clarke had taken a stress disability retirement from the state Department of Justice in August, 1991, which gave him $140 a week in benefits. According to medical records contained in his state Workers’ Compensation Board case, he had suffered depression, stomach problems, nightmares, anxiety, high blood pressure and bouts of heavy drinking since late 1988.

Those records show that Robert Clarke made substantial improvement for two years, but suffered a relapse of his psychological problems about six months before the shooting.

“He reported that recently he had had problems sleeping, found he began to utilize alcohol to reduce his symptoms of anxiety, and had become socially withdrawn, even in his ability to discuss his concerns with his wife,” states an April, 1990, status report of his medical condition.

There are indications from family acquaintances, Madigan says, that Yvonne Clarke feared her husband in the months before her death, and occasionally asked them to stay with her at her home until she was sure her husband was not in a bad mood.

One of those family friends, Kellie Garcia, said Yvonne Clarke had told her about violent arguments with her spouse and that her husband had tried to strangleher once but let go just before she was going to pass out. Supposedly he told her, “I can easily kill you,” Garcia said.

Further fueling the family’s suspicions, Robert Grisanti says, was Yvonne Clarke’s longstanding refusal to be in the same room where a firearm was present, and Robert Clarke’s apparent deviation from his standard practice of cleaning his firearms in the couple’s downstairs den.

Michael R. Mitchell, an attorney for the Grisantis’ grandson, also questioned Robert Clarke’s version of how the gun accidentally discharged. He pointed to the design of the weapon, which has been relatively unchanged since it was introduced in 1911.

When a shot is fired, Mitchell said, the recoil forces a slide mechanism back, which ejects the spent shell and sends a new round into the chamber when it returns into place. The slide does so very quickly and with enough force to cause injury to a hand or finger that gets in its path.

If the shooting was accidental, Mitchell contends, there was a good possibility Robert Clarke would have been injured by the recoiling slide mechanism.

“I defy you to replicate what he did without injuring your thumb,” Mitchell said. “I suppose it is possible for it to happen the way he described it, but then again he said he was not expecting his gun to fire.”

But, Mitchell said, there is no indication in police records that the Colt .45 weapon in question was thoroughly tested, or that Robert Clarke’s left thumb or hand showed signs of being struck by any part of the weapon.