On April 17, 1983, the life of forty-three-year-old male musician Felix Pappalardi was cut short in his fifth-floor apartment at 30 Waterside Plaza in Manhattan, New York. He was shot once in the neck and pronounced dead at the scene. The instrument of his demise was a derringer pistol that he himself had gifted to his wife, Gail Collins Pappalardi, just a few months prior.
The shooting occurred in the early morning hours after Pappalardi had returned from visiting his girlfriend.
It was later revealed during legal proceedings that the couple had an open marriage. However, Pappalardi's relationship with a young singer-songwriter named Valerie Merians had reportedly become serious, which enraged his wife. Following the shooting, Collins first telephoned her attorney before contacting emergency services. When law enforcement arrived, she claimed that the gun had discharged accidentally.
Gail Collins Pappalardi was arrested and subsequently charged with second-degree murder. During her trial, she maintained that the shooting was an accident. Her defense claimed that her husband was teaching her how to use the firearm when it unintentionally went off. The jury ultimately acquitted her of second-degree murder and manslaughter but found her guilty of the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide.
For her conviction, Gail Collins Pappalardi was sentenced to a term of 16 months to 4 years in prison. She was released on parole on April 30, 1985, after serving a portion of her sentence. Years later, on December 6, 2013, she was found deceased in the Mexican village of Ajijic, Jalisco, where she had been receiving cancer treatments.
