It wasn’t merely heartache over a broken marriage that drove Sheryl J. Martin to shoot her husband, a forensic psychologist said Thursday. She said the reason is much more scientific than that.
The psychologist contended that under a rare concept known as “betrayal trauma theory,” the 54-year-old Ridgefield woman lost touch with reality after hearing about her husband’s affair and his request for a divorce.
That’s when Martin shot Eddie E. Martin four times on Sept. 8, 2007.
“It was really clear to me there was a dissociative episode leading up to her husband’s admission and in the hours after,” testified Laura Brown, a Seattle psychologist who studies the theory. “Due to that dissociation, she was unable to form intent.”
Brown testified for defense attorney David McDonald in a two-day hearing before Clark County Superior Court Judge Barbara Johnson. McDonald tried to persuade the judge to allow him to present the theory — that contends her husband’s affair put his client over the edge — as a defense to jurors. Martin is scheduled for trial Oct. 18 on a first-degree attempted murder charge.
The issue is whether the theory has been generally accepted by the psychology community or is still too unknown to be reliable.
Johnson held off with her decision Thursday afternoon, saying she’d contact attorneys at a later date.
The defense is a rare strategy. A diminished capacity defense, which suggests a defendant cannot form intent because of a mental illness, is more common. But McDonald is contending the betrayal trauma caused a break from reality similar to mental illness.
“Ms. Martin feels like she was betrayed after a long marriage,” he said. “(The theory) puts in perspective the experience of Ms. Martin in a scientific construct.”
Senior Deputy Prosecutor John Fairgrieve didn’t buy the defense. In arguing that a person can’t form intent, you must show a mental illness, he said. But there is no mention of betrayal trauma theory in the DSM-IV, a guidebook psychologists use in diagnosing clients.
Dissociation, a symptom marked by memory loss or a break from reality, is noted in the guidebook, he added, but only as a symptom. In fact, Martin claims she has no memory of the shooting, he said.
While Brown diagnosed Martin with depression, “there is no connection between the diagnosis and the dissociation,” Fairgrieve said.
During the attorneys’ closing arguments, Judge Johnson asked them questions about the relevance of the theory. The founder of the betrayal trauma theory, University of Oregon psychology professor Jennifer Freyd, first hatched the concept in 1991 as a way to explain why child sex abuse victims repressed memories. The idea focused on victims whose abusers were close relatives and their feeling of being violated by a person of trust. The professor contended that adults can feel that same betrayal in physical, emotional abuse and their partner’s infidelity.
But, Johnson questioned, why do very few of Freyd’s scholarly articles focus on adults affected by trauma?
“The theory itself is not limited” to children,” McDonald said in response. “Once a person becomes dependent and then suffers trauma, it’s the same experience as if it was a child sex abuse victim.”
Fairgrieve said the whole thing is a bit of a stretch. Freyd’s theory, when focused on sex abuse victims, was relatively unknown. So the idea of adults being affected by betrayal trauma is even more obscure, he said.
Martin, a loan processor when she was arrested, is out on $100,000 bail. Martin, shot in the arm and leg, was hospitalized for several days after the incident.
Laura McVicker: 360-735-4516 or laura.mcvicker@columbian.com.
