An Argument Ends With a Gunshot DID THE JUDGE MEAN TO KILL HIS WIFE?

JEFFREY FERGUSON MADE A GUNHAND GESTURE AND POINTED TO HIS WIFE AT A RESTAURANT. WITHIN HOURS SHERYL WAS DEAD IN THE LIVING ROOM OF THEIR CALIFORNIA HOME

- CHRISTINE PELISEK

As families go, the Fergusons of Anaheim Hills, Calif., seemed closer than most. Jeffrey Ferguson, an Orange County superior court judge, and his wife, Sheryl, a homemaker, doted on their adult son Phillip, a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where his parents bought him a home and planned to retire so that they could spend more time with him in the future. Family friend Early Hawkins ran into the trio at a bar association social event last summer.

"I gave Sheryl a hug," Hawkins recalls, and he teased Phillip about the photos of gourmet meals he had cooked that Sheryl proudly posted on Facebook. "They seemed like a happy family," says Hawkins. "They seemed fine-very fine."