COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- The wife of Francisco Martin Duran says her husband would never have tried to kill President Clinton because he had a strong belief that life was sacred.
"He may not have liked the government, he may not have liked a lot of things, but for him to go out and try to hurt the president -- I think that's a little extreme," Ingrid Duran said in an exclusive interview Wednesday. "To take another life is against his principles."
Meanwhile, in Washington, Mr. Duran's lawyer asked a judge yesterday for a gag order, saying her client fears that pretrial publicity may affect his ability to get a fair trial.
Leigh Kenny, the federal public defender representing Mr. Duran, included a three-inch thick sheaf of transcripts of broadcasts and copies of newspaper stories dealing with last Saturday's shooting.
U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson asked Ms. Kenny and the U.S. attorney's office to submit proposed gag orders and legal references by noon today. She did not indicate when she would rule.
Mr. Duran, a former Army medic accused of firing a semiautomatic rifle at the White House on Saturday, faces four felony charges. Federal authorities are also reportedly considering charging Mr. Duran, 26, with attempted assassination of the president, punishable by life imprisonment. A note found in his truck was inscribed with the words "kill the (prez)." In addition, one of his co-workers at the Broadmoor hotel told reporters Tuesday that Mr. Duran said he was "going to take out the president."
His wife thinks it was simply a desperate cry for help and a way to vent his frustrations about a life that had gone bad.
"He was a man looking for answers -- and the answers weren't black and white," said Ms. Duran, 26. "He just couldn't find what he was looking for, which was probably a key to a happy life."
Mr. Duran wasn't always so bitter, his wife said. When they met in Hawaii, he was good-natured and outgoing. He loved the Army and his lifestyle. A trained paramedic, he once helped an elderly man who collapsed in a mall, giving him CPR and perhaps saving his life, she said.
But Mr. Duran felt betrayed by the Army when it convicted him of assault, gave him a dishonorable discharge and sent him to Fort Leavenworth, Kan., for 2 1/2 years, Ms. Duran said.
"It was a totally different life for him; he couldn't get used to it," she said. "He met a lot of people there who felt just as betrayed as he had been and built up this anger against the government."
Ms. Duran tried to comfort him, telling him constantly that she would be there for him when he got out. And she was.
But things weren't the same.
"His whole mentality had changed," she said. "He felt that the world was a very cold place and that everybody was fending for themselves and didn't care about anyone else, only themselves."
In the weeks before he left for a monthlong journey that would lead him to the White House, Mr. Duran was more quiet than usual. Ms. Duran said she never knew he had bought a semiautomatic rifle or a pump-action shotgun.
"He knew I didn't like guns," she said. "Once before he brought one home, and I told him I didn't want that thing around, so he got rid of it."
On Sept. 30, Mr. Duran told Ms. Duran he was going to the store. When it got dark, then light again, Ms. Duran panicked and filed a missing-person report.
A month later, she heard the news in bits and pieces. Some guy shot at the White House. He was from Colorado Springs. He was her husband.