Murder with a luger?

[Deaf Smith]

I was watching E! true hollywood story this week and they were going over the story of Cloudette something or other that was convicted of manslaughter of her boyfriend (man name of savage). This happened in aspen colorado about 15 -20 years ago. Supposedly he was showering her how to shoot a handgun(a luger) she was holding it and it went off killing him. (yes I know she broke the 4 rules)Anyway the proscuter wanted her for murder 1 saying no way could the gun go off by itsself " a force of 7 or 8 pouinde was required to pull the trigger on this gun" he says. Now I was told many years ago that the Luger was the only gun that could actually be fired with the barrel and togle removed from the frame. Thus making the proscuter an idiot

(for not researching his statement befour making it).

Am I correct in this? If I am then she may have been telling the truth that she did NOT pull the trigger and was innocent of the charges. What do you think?

Deaf Smith

[Thor]

A Luger can be fired with just the top half (barrel/reciever/toggle train). Exception is the police Luger that had an additional sear safety to prevent this from happening! Thor

[Thor]

BUT, you can't fire it assembled with the top on by pushing in the sear with you fingers as you can when the top portion is taken off first. When fully assembled, the side plate will block the portion of the sear that you can press when the top is off, only way to fire the pistol when assembled is to pull the trigger, unless the gun had a bad sear/firing pin engagement that MIGHT have released prematurely. Lugers do wierd things sometimes, like Dok's Luger going full auto on my when I was first test firing it! Lucky for both of us, I fixed it! Thor

[John Sabato]

The pistol would have to have a defective sear/firing pin engagement problem for an accident or someone pulled the trigger.


The upper half of a luger is most definitely a weapon unto itself when the sear is no longer protected by the sideplate. all you have to do is press down on the forward part of the sear bar and BOOM! I certainly wouldn't want to be holding the top when it discharged. I would imagine that the recoil and possible opening of the toggle in your hand would be quite painful.


I also remember a court case about 40 years ago where an individual was being charged with assault with a deadly weapon because he was attacked in a bar by and unarmed man and he pulled a Luger out of his pocket and hit the guy over the head with it. That stopped the attack, but even though the safety was on, the Luger fired coincidental with the thump on the attacker's head and the bullet went through the front window of the bar and struck and killed an innocent bystander accross the street.


I remember that the judge praised the man for not intentionally using the Luger on his attacker as a firearm but rather as a club, but as I recall he was also found guilty of unintentional manslaughter because the person across the street died. "If you hadn't used the loaded gun as a club, that person would still be alive..."


I have never been able to "accidently" make a Luger fire, so I don't understand either of these situations... just reporting what I remember...


-John

Yes, here in Colorado, that was quite the news story, and I happened to know one of the lawyers that defended Claudine in the civil suit that followed.

The perp was Claudine Longet, a somewhat famous French actress/singer......and the victim was Spider Sabich, a top notch professional ski racer at the time.

It seems both had been drinking, and playing with the gun, and when she pointed it at him and said, "Like theees?", it "accidentally" went off......a few times.....dead center of mass, killing him on the spot.

Yeah right. It was all pretty fishy.

She was acquitted of the murder charge, but had to pay damages in the civil suit brought by his parents, against what he *might* have earned for them someday.

And indeed.....even Rule #1 could have prevented this, but as they had been bickering, there has always been some question of whether it was really an accident at all.

This reminds me of a local case we had here several years ago where a wife killed her husband with a shotgun and asserted that it was an accident. Although the gun was fired three times, and although it was a single-shot model which had to be reloaded after each round, the jury still acquitted her.

[Big Norm]

I remember the case well. Both Claudette and her champion skier boyfriend were nearing the end on their careers. Claudette was in the process of divorcing her husband, Andy Williams who was and very good singer and entertainer. She had a young child, was very feminine, was very attractive. But she had a bad temper. There were rumors of cocaine use.

Her skier boyfriend was in the process of dumping her and she was just beginning to realize it.


There was no indication that the gun was disassembled from what I remember reading. I can not remember if more than one shot was fired but the first was enough. I think that the jury backed off because she had a young child and because Andy Williams supported her so well during the trial. Plus she looked so attractively feminine and Andy Williams was such a good guy. This always plays well with a jury.


The prosecutor was right in trying her for murder. But its hard to beat a sypathetic jury.

Big Norm

[Thor]

Hey Big Norm, if she was using DOK's Luger before I fixed it, he would have had 7-8 holes from belly button to adam's apple when it when full auto!! Probably not, she might have hit him twice! DOK's gun really recoiled!!! YIKES! I wasnt ready for it! bbbbbbBBBBBBBuuuuuuurrrrrrpppppp!!

~~OUCH~~~

My recolection from what I read in the paper (25 years ago)

was that the weapon was a Stoger .22 cal Luger copy.

I also remember at least one report that the saftey did not

work right on this pistol. They supposedly found the pistol in the house they were renting.

All of this is a little fuzzy, it has been a long time.

Anyone else remember this version?


Mike Halbrook

On the same subject--but not murder. Several years ago I read in one of the major gun magazines ---A man was found dead at his kitchen table with a partially disassembled Luger[top half separated from frame]. Investigators concluded that the guy separated top half with round in chamber and had pressed the sear bar---there by accidently "doing himself in" Also I believe that the Jap 94 can be fired with out pulling trigger by depressing the exposed sear bar.

[Thor]

Art, true about the Nambu 94. I got one in my shop to reblue and I had been alerted to this and upon my own investigations, it proved true! YIKES! Becareful out there! ~Thor~