Robert Alfred Pruitt, 39, was born to Richard and Connie Pruitt in Tupelo, Mississippi. Richard was an insurance broker and Connie a schoolteacher.

Robert, an only child comfortable spending time alone, became entranced with electronics and gadgetry. For a time, he considered becoming an electronics engineer, but in high school, he realized he had an aversion to math and any kind of design work, as reflected in his grades. Robert decided that his talent was as a consumer—buying and using, not inventing and designing.

His near-obsession with electronic gadgetry made him popular with his schoolmates, most of whom could not afford expensive state-of-the-art entertainment gadgets. His peers and sometimes their parents sought him out for his expertise, and their trust in him helped ease his social and academic anxieties.

A school counselor once told his parents, "Robert is such a perfectionist that it could cause him great stress in the future if he doesn't learn to ease up." He seemed able to relax in later school years but found himself nervous about deadlines, finals, and tests.

Later, as an attorney, these tensions developed with his court appearances, but he used his usual relentless, studious methods to perfect his court presentations. He suffered anxiety attacks on occasion but resisted medication because he said it hampered his performance.

Upon graduation from the University of Mississippi, Robert enrolled in the Ole Miss Law School. In his last year of law school, Robert fell in love with one of his classmates, Gloria Bell. They married before their graduation, but soon realized that differences in their backgrounds and future goals were too significant. After less than a year of marriage, they went through a bitter divorce, which left Robert emotionally and financially drained. Since they both subsequently practiced law in Oxford, their paths crossed frequently and unpleasantly.

Robert threw himself into his work as an Assistant District Attorney in Yoknapatawpha County. However, he found the job less than satisfying and certainly not capable of supporting the lifestyle he desired, as he told friends in the DA's office.

Things began to look better for him when he went into private practice with a fellow assistant DA, Gary Rayburn, ten years ago. They found their legal talents meshed well.

The following year, Robert did some legal work for a young widow, Vanessa Lockhart. After several months of dating, they decided to get married. They settled into Vanessa's modest but attractive Tyler Avenue home, where Robert converted the basement into a fully-equipped entertainment space that he filled with his extensive electronic collection.

At the end of a successful case, he rewarded himself with another of his grown-up toys, and he spent numerous solitary hours there, relaxing from the rigors of his practice. Vanessa often joked that Robert loved her basement more than he loved her, but privately, she complained of being left alone too much.

Robert enjoyed watching sports and became enamored with wagering on his favorites, but Vanessa disapproved because she considered gambling to be throwing money away. Robert justified it as his way of relieving the enormous pressure he was under. He insisted they could afford it since he never went into deep debt, but Vanessa wasn't convinced.

Robert proved to be a talented criminal defense attorney. His criminal cases were not necessarily matters of life and death, and although financially rewarding, they intensified his anxieties. He bought a pistol for protection and confessed to Vanessa that he hoped it would relieve his nervousness around some of his clients. But after learning to fire it at a firing range, he told Vanessa it terrified him, and he locked the gun away in a file cabinet in his home office. Vanessa confided to friends that she didn't even want it in the house and wished he'd get rid of it.

When a fellow defense attorney suffered a devastating stroke last fall on the eve of trial, Robert stepped up to take over the defense of accused killer Ed Harbison. He was granted a brief continuance to get up to speed on the case.

Robert was at home preparing for the trial, which was scheduled to begin jury selection this week, when he was shot and killed.