 A Jefferson Parish judge on Tuesday (Aug. 7) ruled there was probable cause to hold Shantel Parria Wagner on the charge of second-degree murder for the shooting death of her husband, Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office Sgt. Troy Smith, an instructor and hostage negotiator with the department, according to the Sheriff's Office. The ruling marked the end of an unusually long, two-day hearing in commissioner's court during which Sheriff's Office investigators said the physical evidence doesn't support Wagner's various stories to investigators that her husband committed suicide by a gunshot to the head. But Wagner's defense attorneys, Leo Palazzo and Wiley Beevers, said Wagner has always been consistent in her statement that Smith shot himself. "How do you shoot somebody without touching the gun?" Smith, 44, an instructor at the Sheriff's Office training academy and a former member of the New Orleans Police Department, died June 24, one week after Wagner called 911 to report that he tried to commit suicide inside their Waggaman home on Father's Day. None of the evidence presented during the hearing prove Wagner shot her husband, he said.
– Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office Sgt. Troy Smith is dead. The question is whether it was by his own hand or his wife's. A judge on Tuesday determined there was sufficient probable cause to hold Smith's wife, Shantel Parria Wagner, in connection with his June 24 death. The timeline in the case begins one week prior, on Father's Day, when Wagner called 911 saying her husband had shot himself in the head. Wagner is at times crying and near-hysterical in audio of the call posted by Fox 8. The Times-Picayune reports Smith was hospitalized until his death the following week. Wagner's lawyer says Smith, 44, suffered from depression and PTSD, was dealing with financial strain, and texted a suicide threat the day before he was shot. But investigators say the evidence suggests the fatal gunshot wound Smith suffered wasn't self-inflicted. The autopsy report hasn't been finished, however, so the pathologist who handled the autopsy wouldn't deem it a homicide or suicide on the stand, though the Advocate reports she did say Smith exhibited no gunpowder burns or abrasions. The head of the Sheriff's Office Crime Lab testified the "totality of evidence," as the Times-Picayune puts it, isn't in line with a suicide—though he also acknowledged Wagner's DNA was not present on the gun found at the scene. But the judge said inconsistencies in Wagner's story—WDSU reports prosecutors say she altered her story 16 times—and a witness who alleges Wagner copped to the murder amounted to probable cause. Her bond has been set at $300,000.