University lecturer serving sentence in US has hopes of retrial dashed

Joanna Findlay: Was found guilty of trying to kill her husband.

A Perthshire woman who was jailed for five years for the attempted murder of her husband in the United States has had her hopes of a retrial dashed.

Joanna Findlay was originally charged with murdering her husband Gary Trogdon, a former US Air Force Lieutenant, after finding 3000 child porn images on his computer.

But she was convicted of the lesser offence of attempted murder after a jury decided she fired a gun at him before he turned a weapon on himself.

The jury cleared Findlay, 41, of Blairgowrie, Perthshire, of the murder, saying he had shot himself shortly after she tried and failed to kill him.

The judge at St Marys County Circuit Court in Maryland allowed Findlay to stay out of custody ahead of her sentence.

She was facing up to 50 years in jail but was sentenced to five years when she returned to court in February this year.

Findlay had told the court her husband, a former US Air Force Lieutenant, had attacked her and chased her round the house.

She said she grabbed a .22-caliber pistol, firing it into the floor to scare him.

Her parents who live in Blairgowrie have regularly travelled to America to support her and had hoped of a retrial to clear her name.

A judge has now denied her request for a retrial.

Ms Findlay moved from Blairgowrie to the US 15 years ago and married Mr Trogdon. She had attended Dundee College and Aberdeen University and went on to teach at the University of Maryland.

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