The family of a Perthshire lecturer convicted in the USA of trying to shoot her husband have dismissed calls for their daughter to be retried for murder after it emerged that the man making the fresh complaint is a convicted sex offender.
Speaking publicly for the first time about their heartache, Joanna Findlay’s parents described their daughter as a ”good, loving, caring person” who now has ”the odds stacked against her” as she awaits sentence in America.
The 41-year-old, of Blairgowrie, is due to be sentenced at the end of February after being found guilty by a jury of attempted second degree murder and using a handgun in the commission of a felony. She faces around five years behind bars after Gary Trogdon died at the couple’s Maryland home on October 30 2010.
Speaking to The Courier, Joanna’s parents, Frieda and Tom Findlay said they are managing to keep in regular contact with their daughter. However, they are finding it ”extremely difficult” to cope with circumstances they say are having a detrimental impact on their health.
”Joanna is probably looking at a statutory sentence of five years’ imprisonment, just for trying to defend herself,” Frieda (61) said. ”Joanna had been married to Gary for 15 years but there was a confrontation after she discovered he had child porn on his computer, and later the authorities discovered more than 3,000 indecent images of children on there.
”Many of these images were of the worst kind, of missing American children being abused and some dated back to 1998. Joanna didn’t have a clue about these images and neither did we.
”Two and a half months later there was a confrontation between Joanna and Gary about the images. On the police tape played in court, he (Gary) tells the police that he had weapons in both hands. She tried to fend him off and Joanna admitted firing the pistol into the deck.”
Mrs Findlay added: ”In the third 911 call played in court, he told the police he had all the guns. Joanna ran out of the house and heard shots. It transpired he had committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest. It’s a whole different legal system over there and Joanna faces jail just for discharging a gun inside the house whilst trying to defend herself.”
Mr and Mrs Findlay had been upset to read last week that Gary Trogdon’s brother, Greg (51), of Missouri, USA, was calling for Joanna to be retried for first degree murder. Greg Trogdon told The Courier he was filing for a ”wrongful death” civil suit through the American courts and made various allegations about her personal life.
He said: ”I want her to be tried and convicted of murdering my brother … All I read in the Scottish media is about how sweet and innocent she is. The sweet girl who was bullied by my brother and who’ll never get the chance to have children … I’m willing to sell my vehicles and my home to see the truth come out.”
But it has emerged that Greg Trogdon is a convicted sex offender who was jailed for five years in 2003 and placed on a further four-year supervision order after pleading guilty to receiving child pornography. He also has a prior conviction for first-degree sexual misconduct against a girl under the age of 12.
The convictions have sickened Mr and Mrs Findlay and they believe it shatters Greg Trogdon’s credibility when he expresses opinions about their daughter.
Mrs Findlay continued: ”We have no evidence to suggest that Gary and Greg Trogdon were swapping paedophilic images but it’s become clear more recently that (Joanna’s husband) Gary didn’t want people to know that Greg was his brother after the conviction in 2003.
“Gary was a former US Air Force lieutenant colonel who had top security clearance to work in military research at Fort McNair in the US. He might have lost this if the truth about his brother came out. But we now wonder if he was really worried about was his own interests in paedophilia being discovered.”
Mr and Mrs Findlay have been comforted by the support of family and friends at home in and around Perthshire. People who knew Joanna locally, as well as people who knew her as a student at Dundee College and Aberdeen University, have sent character references to help with her legal fight. She has also received considerable financial and emotional support from friends in the US.
Freida added: ”A horrible picture has been painted of our daughter. But we just feel she’s fallen victim to circumstance and feel the odds are stacked against her.”
Contacted by The Courier, Greg Trogdon declined the to talk about his past. But he insisted he will continue his pursuit of a wrongful death civil suit against Joanna Findlay.
He accused the Findlay family of telling ”lies” about the relationship between his late brother and their daughter.
He added: ”This is not about money it’s about justice.”