To the outside person, Sheryl J. Martin was happy, had a good marriage and home life, exuding a Martha Stewart persona, her defense attorney said.
But in reality, she often had suicidal thoughts and struggled in a turbulent marriage.
That all came to a head on Sept. 8, 2007, when she found out her husband was having an affair, which spiraled Martin into a dissociative state, defense attorney David McDonald said in his closing argument Friday.
After hearing McDonald’s closing argument, as well as that of Senior Deputy Prosecutor John Fairgrieve, the jury of 10 women and two men deliberated for six hours but were unable to reach a verdict. They were sent home at 6 p.m. and will return Monday to resume deliberations.
They are deciding whether the Ridgefield woman is guilty of first-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault of her husband, Eddie E. Martin, or whether her mental illness — compounded by the stress of learning her husband was having an affair — prevented her from forming legal intent.
In his closing argument, Fairgrieve said the facts of the case clearly show Martin intended to kill her husband. She shot him twice in the legs before taking a break to reload and returning to shoot him twice more in the arm.
“One shot, OK, maybe she was trying to inflict bodily injury,” he said. “But that’s not what happened. She shows what her intent was. … Four shots with four hits with reloading in the middle is not haphazard.”
Fairgrieve said the central theme of the case is this common saying: “Heaven has no rage like love turned to hatred; nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”
While Martin long suspected her husband had been unfaithful, the situation came to a head late that night, when she confronted him after seeing him sending text messages on his cell phone. During a volatile argument, he confessed to the affair, triggering a talk about divorce.
“This is all tracking with normal experience,” Fairgrieve said. About a husband or wife cheating: “That’s probably the main thing that triggers situations of domestic violence.”
But McDonald said this isn’t a run-of-the-mill case about a “wild woman” full of rage. Not all scorned people shoot their lovers, he argued.
“Sometimes there is an underlying reason for it,” he said.
That reason, he said, was Martin’s long undiagnosed depression and histrionic personality disorder, or a disorder in which a person overreacts to get attention.
Before the incident, “Ms. Martin was bright, disarming. Her home was warm and inviting,” he said. “But behind the doilies, lace curtains and family photos,” his client suffered major depressive disorder and snapped upon learning about her husband’s two-year affair.
The night of the shooting, her thoughts and actions were disjointed, he said. She only remembers standing outside the door of a camper where her husband slept moments before the shooting. His screaming, following the shots being fired, woke her from her dissociative state, he argued.
Seattle psychologist Laura Brown testified for the defense that Martin remembered having an out-of-body experience that night, like she was “floating.” These and other symptoms show she had a break from reality and couldn’t form intent, McDonald said.
But while the psychologist for the prosecution, Marilyn Ronnei of Western State Hospital, agreed Martin showed signs of dissociation, Martin still was acting in goal-directed behavior and knew she was shooting her husband, Fairgrieve said.
While she told psychologists months after the incident that she didn’t remember the actual shooting, a taped 911 call shows the contrary: “Yeah, I just shot my husband,” Martin was heard saying flatly to a dispatcher.
Fairgrieve suspects that she’s now saying she doesn’t remember because of a guilty conscience.
“She’s generally a good person who did a horrible thing,” he said. “And she cannot come to terms with what she’s done.”
Laura McVicker: 360-735-4516 or laura.mcvicker@columbian.com.
