Elderly woman’s murder retrial set for October

The retrial for an 81-year-old woman charged with killing her 85-year-old boyfriend has been set for Oct. 6, Fulton County court officials said Monday.

Lena Sims Driskell is scheduled to face a second trial in the shooting death of Herman Wilson. A Fulton County jury convicted Driskell in June 2006 for shooting Wilson in the lobby of their southwest Atlanta apartment complex.

In the first trial, Driskell was sentenced to life in prison plus five years in the June 2005 shooting. According to testimony and prosecutors, Driskell said Wilson had cheated on her, so she shot him in the head four times.

She got a second trial after Fulton Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville ruled she got ineffective representation in the first. Driskell’s trial attorney argued that she was delusional and not mentally competent, but did not call a psychiatrist to serve as an expert witness, Glanville said.