Attorney Katherine Scardino and Attorney Jimmy Phillips Jr. represented a lady charged with the shooting death of her husband. The defend­ant, her husband and her husband’s brother were returning home from an evening of heavy drinking. While in the drive­way to the residence the husband assaulted the defendant, smashing her head against the dashboard of the car and actu­ally pulling a clump of hair from her head.

The defendant had been a victim of her husband’s physical assaults in the past. In order to protect herself she retrieved a shotgun prior to her husband entering into the residence.

When her husband charged her, telling her he was going to kill, her she fired the weapon causing his death. The husband’s brother told police he did not see an assault in the car, and had not entered the house until after the shooting was over.

Gradoni & Associates’ Investigation Reveals…

We interviewed a number of witnesses, but we were unable to substantiate any of the previous physical abuse, since the de­fendant never called the police, fearing that the arrest of her husband would cause him to lose his job.

The background investigation we conducted on the brother in­dicated that he had been arrested previously for alcohol related offenses. Katherine and Jimmy were able to show the jury photographs of the defendant’s clump of hair that had been photographed by the responding officers at the scene.

The defendant’s brother lied on the stand, stating that he had never been arrested, eroding all of his credibility regarding his testimony for the State. The jury found that the defendant acted in Self-Defense and delivered an acquittal.

RESULT BASED ON INVESTIGATION: Acquittal of Murder Charges

Return to the December 2016 Investigator’s Newsletter

The Shotgun Murder Investigation