Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Dayton, OH: Trial starts for wife 
blamed 
in spouse’s 
slaying

Lou Grieco
Posted: 03/14/2011 11:27 PM

DAYTON — Pandora Jean Zan helped plan her husband’s slaying, even moving his gun “so that he would not have access to it while he was being murdered,” an assistant Montgomery County prosecutor said Monday.

Zan, 46, of Dayton, is charged with eight felonies, including three counts of complicity to commit murder, in the Oct. 17, 2009, slaying of Charles Zan II.

Her trial, before Common Pleas Judge Mary Wiseman began Monday and will continue throughout the week.

Zan’s son, Cody Henderson, who police said did the stabbing, is to go on trial in June. He could face the death penalty if convicted as charged.

Assistant Prosecutor Erin Claypoole, who presented the opening statement, said Zan planned everything with her son so they could get Charles Zan’s life insurance money.

But defense attorney Al Wilmes said Zan was bipolar, and “that causes her to make reckless statements.”

She engaged in “fantasy talk” with her son about how things would be better if her husband was dead, but to her surprise, Henderson took it seriously, Wilmes said.

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