Karilyn Bales, wife of Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, spoke to Today's Matt Lauer about her husband's alleged massacre of 17 Afghan villagers. In an interview broadcast this morning, she talks about how she first heard of the shooting while she was grocery shopping, and she firmly maintains her husband is innocent.

When Lauer asked if a guilty verdict could persuade her otherwise, she said, no. "This is not him," she said. "It's not him." To pay for her husband's legal fees, Karilyn Bales has started fundraising. She announced the fund during her interview with Lauer.

Lauer asked how the couple had dealt with Sgt. Bales's fourth tour of duty and the traumatic brain injury that he sustained during war. "He shielded me from a lot of what he went through," she said. "He's a very tough guy. He loves children. He's like a big kid himself. It's unbelievable to me. I have no idea what happened, but he would not—he loves children—and he would not do that." Though she's spoken with her husband twice on the phone, she hasn't directly asked if he committed the crimes he accused of. "Not on a monitored phone call," she added.

The American government has announced it will pay $50,000 for each Afghan civilian killed—not as compensation, the Obama administration was sure to clarify, but as aid—and $11,000 for each person wounded. NBC Nightly News reported that the average annual income in that area of Afghanistan is $300.

News released this weekend suggests that Sgt. Bales left the American base in Kandahar province twice, indicating that the murders for which he is accused were premediated. Bales was charged Friday with 17 counts of murder in the first degree.