Man Who Killed Topless Dancer Enters Guilty Plea -- He Claimed Insanity In Trials

A Kenmore man who killed a topless dancer but twice avoided murder convictions pleaded guilty today to first-degree manslaughter.

Gregory Nagel, 48, shot and killed dancer Minta Smith inside Sugar's Dance Club in North King County Sept. 3, 1993. He was acquitted in May of first-degree murder in connection with the death. His second trial, for second-degree murder, ended with a hung jury two weeks ago in King County Superior Court.

Both times, his attorney, John Henry Browne, presented an insanity defense. Nagel suffered from depression and had been taking a series of mood-leveling drugs. The combination, said Browne, prevented him from thinking rationally when he shot Smith six times.

Nagel had been committed to mental hospitals for depression twice in the year before the shooting. After he shot Smith, he walked to his car and stabbed himself 17 times.

Nagel had built a relationship with Smith, 28, of Lynnwood. Prosecutors said it was purely sex for money as far as Smith was concerned, but Nagel said he loved the woman and was crushed when she told him to leave her alone.

Prosecutors said Nagel killed Smith out of anger because she spurned him.

He faces a standard sentence of about three years in prison.