Police Files
MOUNTAIN MAN
Renowned musician and producer Felix Pappalardi and his wife, Gail Collins, always had a tumultuous relationship. It ended when she shot him.
6:21 a.m. Monday, April 18, 1983
“911. What is your emergency?’
“I think I just shot my husband. Please hurry. A man is dying. I must call my lawyer. I believe I shot him. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”
The caller hung up, but police traced the call. They got the distraught woman back on the line. “I believe I shot my husband,” she repeated. They asked if her injured husband was moving. “Not at all,” she said.
She said he had been shot “right in the throat." “I don’t know how to do first aid—please help me."
The operator asked how it happened. “Anger," the woman said, “but not intentional, never, never, never.”