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D.C. Woman Charged With Fatally Shooting Husband

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An employee of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center has been charged with fatally shooting her husband in their District of Columbia home, police said Friday.

Diana Lalchan, 27, was being held without bond on a charge of second-degree murder. She was due in D.C. Superior Court for a hearing next week.

Lalchan, who on her LinkedIn page identifies herself as a pharmacist at Walter Reed, called 911 just after midnight Thursday to say that she had shot her husband, police said. Officers found Christopher S. Lalchan lying dead on the living room floor with a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Police said they found four unregistered weapons -- two pistols, a revolver and an antique gun -- in the couple's Southwest Washington home.

She told detectives that she picked up a .40-caliber pistol from the television stand and shot her husband after a series of arguments that night that started after she arrived home, according to charging documents filed in the case. She fired three shots at her husband, who had placed the pistol on the TV stand in order "to make her feel safe," after he approached her and made her fear in danger of being attacked, Lalchan told the police, the documents say.

Lalchan also told detectives that she had previously been abused by her husband, though no reports were ever filed, police said. The couple had been married for four years. Police said Lalchan did not allege being physically abused the night of the shooting and that her only injury was a bruise on her arm that she said she received during a martial arts self-defense class.

Her public defender didn't immediately return a phone message seeking comment Friday.

According to her LinkedIn profile page, Lalchan has been a clinical discharge pharmacist at Walter Reed -- a military medical center in Bethesda -- since September 2009.

Sandy Dean, a Walter Reed spokeswoman, said the hospital was aware of the charge but would not comment further.

(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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