Wife testifies in Neville case

As Tom Neville's paranoia grew, his wife sought assistance for him.

Weeks before his death in Fresno, Tom Neville read a newspaper article that may have triggered the deep psychological problems that ended in tragedy outside an apartment complex storage closet.

The article reported on a Fairbanks, Alaska, handyman who had murdered his wife and then took his own life.

In slow, halting tones, Andrea Neville described to a federal court jury Friday how Tom Neville, the former Fresno State and professional football player, changed from a loving, caring husband and father to a man haunted by fears that someone was going to kill him.

Those fears eventually led him back to Fresno from Fairbanks. Here he was taken into custody on a mental health violation. Three days later he escaped from a psychiatric hospital, and in the early morning of May 9, 1998, he was shot 12 times by police who said they feared he would attack them with a fireplace poker.

Andrea Neville, questioned by lawyer Russell Cook, said the handyman who had killed himself and his wife had worked on a door at their home shortly before the shooting.

"Tom was very concerned with that," Andrea Neville said.

Cook is representing Andrea Neville in a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city and eight police officers.

Andrea Neville testified that her husband began speaking continually about someone trying to hurt him and began sleeping in a downstairs room alone "to be safe." But in the morning he would be up with coffee and a newspaper. He would walk upstairs to awaken her.

They would talk for hours, she said. "I just listened to Tom, just let him talk, and he felt better."

When it got worse, she sought help, and one of her brothers arranged a meeting with a psychiatrist, who prescribed drugs to help him combat anxiety and overcome the effects of marijuana he had begun using in an attempt to solve his problems.

Sometimes he would say to her, "Andrea, I hope you are right. No one will hurt me."

Days after he visited the psychiatrist, Neville left Fairbanks. "He said he had to leave," she testified, "that he was going to be killed here in Alaska if he stayed."

She begged him not to leave, Andrea Neville said, and he asked her to come with him. "I said 'I don't know where you are going.' "

She found out later when Brad Alcorn, a Fresno police officer and friend of Neville's, called Alaska state troopers to check on her. She talked to Alcorn, now one of the defendants in the federal trial and told him of the psychological problems Tom was having.

In Fresno, she first visited her husband at University Medical Center, and then at Cedar Vista. It was not until she arrived in Fresno, Andrea said, that Tom spoke of a "hit man" trying to kill him.

She met with him at Cedar Vista psychiatric hospital hours before his escape in what would be their last meeting.

"I stood there," she said, pausing to keep her composure on the witness stand. "I asked him if he'd give me a hug, and he said 'sure.' I hugged him ..."

She was at a motel staying with a brother and sister and their spouses when the call came that Tom had escaped. She called Brad Alcorn, and he came to the room.

She told Alcorn that Tom was bigger than he had remembered him. Neville was 6-foot-5 and 356 pounds. She told him that Tom was scared and that she worried that someone would hurt him because of his size, and that Tom would not hurt anyone.

Andrea Neville's sister, Maria Greulich, and brother, Jim Stepovich, had testified earlier that she repeated over and over again to Alcorn that she was worried that someone would hurt Tom.

Alcorn promised he would stay past his shift to help find Tom.

No one called her to the scene where Tom had barricaded himself in the closet. Early in the morning, Tom Neville's stepbrother, Lance McGlynn, and a police chaplain came to the door of the motel room and said Tom had been shot by police and was dead.

Stepovich said his sister became hysterical. He made arrangements for the body to be taken back to Fairbanks. The funeral filled the city's largest Catholic church to overflowing.

Greulich and Stepovich and two other brothers, Nick and Chris Stepovich, all testified to the couple who were very much in love and "went everywhere together" after they began dating. Nick Stepovich had introduced them.

Dr. Mark I. Levy, a San Francisco forensic psychiatrist, testified that he believes Neville was not suicidal. Police had testified that the ex-lineman was saying things before he was shot that indicated he wanted to die.

Levy said he agreed with a Fairbanks' psychiatrist's conclusion that Neville could have been treated for his paranoia and lived a normal life. Levy also said he believes UMC failed to give Neville the proper medication that could have relieved his anxiety within hours.

"Too much time was wasted without giving this man medication," Levy said. He added later, "He would have calmed down, maybe even become sedated."

After Tom's funeral, Andrea Neville testified, Brad Alcorn called her. "He could barely talk," she said. "... He said that Tom said he loved me, he loved Michael their young son ... that he couldn't tell me what happened -- he wasn't allowed to -- that he would tell me someday.

In addition to Alcorn, the lawsuit also names Police Chief Ed Winchester, who formed the Violent Crimes Suppression Unit whose officers shot Neville; Lt. Greg Coleman, the unit commander; Sgt. Randy Dobbins; and officers Richard Hill, Ramiro Cruz, Jason Serrano and Rudolpho Tafoya.

The jury trial before U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger will resume Tuesday.

The reporter can be reached at jbier@fresnobee.com or 441-6484.