THOMASVILLE — A woman being held in an Oklahoma jail in lieu of a $1 million bond admits fatally shooting her elderly husband, a former Grady County resident.

Herbert Hoover “Harry” Williams was leaving his wife, when she shot him with a 12-gauge shotgun early on the afternoon of Monday, April 13.

Williams, 79, was struck once. Various news reports differ about where the shotgun blast struck his body.

Mark Clark, assistant district attorney for Comanchee and Cotton counties, said the location of the entry wound will not be known until autopsy results are available.

The incident is not the first time Iona Allen shot Williams, according to Lady Ann Williams Cox, the victim’s daughter.

“He would call me and tell me he was scared, that he couldn’t take it anymore,” Cox told the Times-Enterprise during a telephone interview from her DeRidder, La., home. “She shot him once in the arm.”

Cox, who was known as Sandy while growing up in Thomas County, said the previous shooting took place in 1998 or ’99. The bullet could not be removed because to do so would harm a nerve and paralyze the arm, she explained.

“He chose at that point to tell the law that it was an accident, that he was cleaning his gun,” Cox said, adding that only a contortionist could have suffered a gunshot wound in the arm from the position her father was in to clean the firearm.

Cox said her father was struck once in the upper back in the shooting two weeks ago outside the couple’s home in Walters, Okla., a town of 5,000 to 6,000, southwest of Oklahoma City on the Texas border.

“He died instantly, because one of the pellets hit the jugular vein. He was dead when he hit the ground,” she explained.

Williams was holding his dog, Oscar, when the shotgun blast struck him. The dog, who was not injured, went everywhere with Williams and slept with him. The dog is making his home with the grandchild who gave him to Williams.

A Pelham native, Williams grew up in Thomasville and attended Thomasville High School. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he lived in Grady County, where he had a farm. Williams left Grady County about 15 years ago.

Cox, 58, a 1969 graduate of Central High School, and her father, who has four other children, were estranged for a number of years. For the last 15 to 20 years, they have kept in contact.

The last time Cox saw her father was Thanksgiving 2005 at his Oklahoma ranch.

“After (hurricanes) Rita and Katrina got through at our house, we didn’t have much. We went to his house for Thanksgiving,” Cox recalled. It was the first — and only — holiday she spent with her father.