Judge rules 'Tex' McIver can sell late wife's items
ATLANTA - A judge ruled an Atlanta lawyer who is accused of shooting his wife, can auction off her belongings Saturday morning.
District Attorney Paul Howard asked a Fulton County judge to keep Claud ‘Tex’ McIver from selling the items belonging to his late wife, Diane, but the judge said she did not have the power to make the ruling.
Instead, she said it is a probate court matter and any challenges to property should be resolved there.
RELATED: Fulton D.A. files emergency motions in Diane McIver case
In September, Atlanta Police said Mrs. McIver, 64, was a passenger in an SUV which had pulled off the interstate at Edgewood Avenue to avoid construction. According to investigators, the SUV had two other occupants at the time and continued to travel on surface streets towards Buckhead. The SUV was on Piedmont Avenue near Piedmont Park. Investigators said, when a gun inside the vehicle discharged, Mrs. McIver was wounded. She was rushed to Emory University Hospital on Clifton Road where she was pronounced dead just before 1 a.m. on September 26.
Police located the SUV in the hospital parking lot and took initial statements from the other occupants of the car.
Diane McIver was president of Corey Airport Services, an Atlanta-based marketing company.
Her husband, "Tex", is a partner in his firm, vice president of the Georgia State Election Board, and service on the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Gun Violence advisory board.
In October, FOX 5 reported it first appeared the Atlanta Police Department had finished collecting evidence from the vehicle where Diane McIver was shot and ultimately succumbed to her injuries.
The incident has been under the microscope ever since her husband, “Tex”, told police he did not know how his .38 revolver went off striking his wife in the front.
Detectives and crime lab staff examined the SUV, but then released it back to his family. The attorney for Mr. McIver, Stephen Maples, said the vehicle was returned to the family September 30. But Maples said the investigators told the husband’s attorney investigators needed to take another look. The family complied.
This time, Maples said, APD explained it wanted the GBI to examine the vehicle. But there is a hiccup with the planned recheck. The GBI tells FOX 5 the request by authorities cannot be fulfilled because of a restriction. A spokesperson explained the information detectives want to gather is not scientifically possible.
McIver was booked into jail on the involuntary manslaughter charges of Dec. 21. He was released on a $200,000 bond.
NEXT ARTICLE: Police: Arrest in peeping tom cases dating back 5 years