Published: January 12, 2009 08:50 pm      

NIAGARA FALLS: Husband charged in ex-wife’s slaying

Police make quick arrest in first homicide of 2009

A day of drinking and “play” with a loaded handgun led to the death of a LaSalle woman Sunday night.

Her ex-husband has been charged with the crime.

John Polley, 66, 337 78th St., pleaded not guilty during an arraignment in City Court on Monday morning to charges of second-degree manslaughter, second-degree criminal use of a firearm and resisting arrest in the death of his wife, Julia. He was jailed in lieu of bail of $100,000 cash or $200,000 property and is due back in court Jan. 20 with an attorney.

Falls police said Polley called 911 just before 10 p.m. Sunday and told an operator he had “accidentally shot his wife.”

“The (911 operator) was able to get Mr. Polley back on the line and he spoke with Lt. Ted Weed, he was familiar with him,” Detective Capt. Ernest Palmer said. “Ted was able to get him calmed down and he told us he shot his wife in the head and she was not breathing.”

Transcripts of the 911 call between Polley and Weed show that when the lieutenant asked him what had happened, Polley responded, “We were (expletive) around with a handgun and Julie’s dead.”

The Polleys had reportedly been together for 20 years, but divorced for the last six and a half years. Polley told detectives he and his wife were planning to get back together, though.

“There was no past history of domestic violence (involving the Polleys),” Palmer said.

However, both John and Julia had a prior DWI arrest.

In what appeared to be a somewhat rambling interview with police, Polley told detectives he and his ex-wife had gone out drinking on Sunday afternoon.

“They went to the American Legion on Niagara Avenue at 1 p.m. and then to the VFW Post on Main Street to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers game,” Palmer said.

When they returned to the 78th Street home, Polley told detectives, “We were getting frisky in the basement bedroom, we we’re sort of monkeying around.”

The “monkeying around” apparently included pulling out what Polley described as one of about a dozen handguns he owns from a nearby nightstand. Polley said he believed he grabbed a .44-caliber handgun and said he wasn’t sure, at the time, if it was loaded.

“I took it out, she wanted to see it,” Polley said. “We were fooling around. I had the gun in my right hand and I pointed it at her with my finger on the trigger. I shot the woman I loved.”

Julia is described by a family spokesman as “a devoted mother of three and grandmother of three.”

“The family is devastated by the premature loss of their loved one.”

Her children said they found it “impossible to believe the current news story regarding Julia wanting to see any guns as she is extremely uncomfortable even being around them.”

Family members also took issue with the police version of how she spent her Sunday afternoon.

“The current (police information) portray her as drinking all afternoon, when in reality she was working on an annual fundraiser for Children’s Hospital which she was co-chairman of, which was held at an American Legion Post in Niagara Falls,” the family spokesman said.