The husband of a 58-year-old Bend area woman who was walking her two dogs along a rural road when she was inexplicably shot and killed last month has filed a $3.5 million lawsuit.

Steven Peterson is suing Joanna Kasner, saying Kasner shot his wife, Valerie Ann Peterson, multiple times on Jan. 16.

The lawsuit says Kasner called Valerie Peterson over to the fence line of her property, asking to look at the dogs, and then opened fire.

Deschutes County sheriff’s investigators and prosecutors have released no motive, and court papers accusing Kasner of murder have been sealed.

The shooting occurred the day before Valerie Peterson’s 59th birthday. She was alive when deputies arrived at the property at 64855 S.W. McGrath Road, but couldn’t be saved, according to local media reports.

A lawsuit says Valerie Peterson was killed after Joanna Kasner called her over to her fence line at 64855 S.W. McGrath Road on Jan. 16. (Google Maps)

In addition to an accusation that she killed Peterson, Kasner faces charges of attempted murder for allegedly trying to kill another woman that same day and first-degree animal abuse for allegedly injuring Peterson’s Labrador. According to The Bulletin, Kasner is alleged to have shot the dog in the mouth.

An indictment also accuses Kasner of unlawfully using a knife and menacing for allegedly placing three people in “fear of imminent serious physical injury." According to The Bulletin, two of those people were neighbors who heard the gunshots, rushed to the scene to find out what happened and allegedly were threatened by Kasner.

Kasner is being held at the Deschutes County Jail, with no possibility of posting bail. Her criminal defense attorney, Thomas Spear, said Tuesday that he doesn’t believe that Kasner has seen the lawsuit yet, but that she’s unable to comment.

Kasner hasn’t entered a plea yet on the criminal charges. No trial date has been set yet.

Before she was booked into jail, Kasner was being held at St. Charles medical center in Bend, according to The Bulletin. Although it’s not clear why she was at a hospital, posts that Kasner made to Facebook indicate that she distrusted law enforcement and raise questions about her mental state, according to media reports.

According to The Bulletin, in a post four days before the shooting, Kasner wrote that sheriff’s deputies in Washington had harassed her, that she moved to Central Oregon to get away but that trouble had followed her because she has been “harassed and threated (sic) and poisend (sic) by I believe the same people.”

Since that post, the Facebook page appears to have been made private.

Kasner’s husband filed for divorce a month before the shooting. The couple were married five months earlier.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in Deschutes County Circuit Court. Attorney Andrew Fitch is representing the estate.

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee

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