Crime reporter became the criminal

Nearly 30 years ago, one of our Daily Pilot reporters had his name in the paper for all the wrong reasons.

Thomas Barley, an award-winning courts reporter for our newspaper, then known as the Orange Coast Daily Pilot, ended up on the wrong side of his own crime stories when he was arrested on suspicion of stabbing his wife to death on May 26, 1979.

It was a bizarre, violent fit of rage, but not an isolated incident. As old newspaper clippings from the Los Angeles Times showed, Barley had been arrested for a similar attack against his wife, Catherine, about six months earlier.

In that incident, Barley and his wife got into an argument in their Santa Ana mobile home that ended with Barley stabbing her several times in the chest, back, scalp and arms. She survived that one, and the couple separated.

According to people who remember the incident, the couple had a kind of love-hate relationship. News accounts months after the attack show that Tom and Catherine were trying to reconcile and even planned a trip to Europe, even though she had a restraining order out against him. A month before her death, Catherine bought Tom a dog. She worked at a pet store in Santa Ana near Fashion Square, and as it turned out, she was killed just outside of it in the parking lot.

Under hypnosis videotaped and played for jurors, Barley relived the killing. He had been taking heart medication and drank a large amount of wine in his car as he waited for Catherine outside her work. When he saw her walking with two friends, he rushed her with a small letter opener, pinning her on the ground and stabbing her 17 times.

During the attack, one of Catherine’s friends, Marie Dimeglio, told jurors she ran to a nearby restaurant screaming for help. No one responded, she testified June 21, 1979. So she did the only thing she could, she grabbed the restaurant’s “Wait to be seated” sign and ran out and hit Barley with it, sending him sprawling onto the ground next to his bleeding wife, in a daze. Police arrived just then and arrested Barley.

According to reports back then, Barley pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He claimed that he didn’t remember the attack, and his lawyers argued the mix of alcohol and prescription medication caused him to have a “diminished mental capacity.” Jurors found him sane and guilty. He was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Larry Welborn, an Orange County Register reporter who knew Barley through work as they covered many of the same trials, described Barley as an English gentlemen. It paid off for a time in prison up in San Luis Obispo, Welborn said. He said Barley earned the nickname “Pops” and became the resident letter-writer for other inmates, who took a liking to his long, flowing and eloquent writing style.

But it all ended Nov. 19, 1981, when another prisoner attacked Barley, causing a critical blood clot in his brain. He died months later.

Reporter JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.