Busch testifies ex-girlfriend is trained killer

DOVER, Del. - The NASCAR driver known as "The Outlaw" testified Tuesday he believes his ex-girlfriend is a trained assassin dispatched on covert missions around the world who once returned to him in a blood-splattered gown.

"Everybody on the outside can tell me I'm crazy, but I lived on the inside and saw it firsthand," Kurt Busch said when his attorney, Rusty Hardin, questioned why he still believed Patricia Driscoll is a hired killer.

In an interview late Tuesday, Driscoll called Busch's assertion "ludicrous," saying he took it "straight from a fictional movie script" she has been working on for eight years and that he has proofread.

Busch, appearing in court again over Driscoll's request for a no-contact order, continued the push of his legal team to discredit his ex as a scorned woman out to destroy his career, portraying her as a character fit for a screenplay.

Busch said Driscoll repeatedly asserted her assassin status and claimed the work took her on missions across Central and South America and Africa. He recounted one time when the couple was in El Paso, Texas. He said Driscoll left in camouflage gear only to return later wearing a trench coat over an evening gown covered with blood.

A day earlier, Busch said his ex-girlfriend told him she was a mercenary who killed people for a living and had shown him pictures of bodies with gunshot wounds.

Busch said Tuesday that Driscoll had claimed that a female character in "Zero Dark Thirty," a film depicting the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden, was a composite of her and other women.

Last month, Michael Doncheff, who served as a personal assistant to Busch and Driscoll, said an ailing Driscoll told him in September that she had been picked up by a big man and slammed to the ground while helping round up immigrants at the Mexican border, a story Doncheff considered "far-fetched."

Doncheff said Driscoll also asserted that she was a trained assassin for the U.S. government and once told him, "I take down foreign governments. I own Washington."

During the hearing, which stretched over four days, neither Driscoll nor her attorney refuted the testimony.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press late Tuesday, Driscoll dismissed Busch's assertions.

"These statements made about being a trained assassin, hired killer, are ludicrous and without basis and are an attempt to destroy my credibility," Driscoll said. "Not even Rusty Hardin believes this."

"I find it interesting that some of the outlandish claims come straight from a fictional movie script I've been working on for eight years," Driscoll added.

Busch testified Monday that he decided to end his relationship with Driscoll after a race last fall because she was monopolizing his schedule and he needed to focus on racing.

Driscoll said Busch assaulted her in his motorhome at Dover International Speedway a week later, grabbing her by the throat and slamming her head into a wall three times. Busch and his attorneys have denied the allegations, which are the subject of a separate criminal investigation. Driscoll's attorney, Carolyn McNeice, cross-examined Busch on Tuesday, but few of her questions dealt directly with the assault allegations.

Busch has testified that he repeatedly told Driscoll to leave after she showed up unannounced at his motorhome, finally cupping her cheeks in his hands, looking her in the eye and telling her she had to go.

"He advised that her head tapped the wall as he was doing that," Detective James Wood testified Tuesday, recounting Busch's interview with Dover police in November.

Richard Andrew Sniffen, a Christian music minister who performs at NASCAR outreach events and befriended Busch and Driscoll, said Driscoll told him on the night of the alleged assault only that Busch had pushed her and that she hit her head. Sniffen said Driscoll was upset, angry and brokenhearted, but that she never said she was afraid of Busch and seemed intent on reconciling.

That attitude shifted in the weeks that followed, Sniffen said, with Driscoll going "from a broken heart looking for love and reconciliation to anger and a little bit of revenge."

"I will destroy him," Sniffen said Driscoll told him, adding that she repeatedly said she would take Busch down.

A court ruling on Driscoll's request for a no-contact order is expected later this month or in early February.