BY MARIA BARAN - News-Democrat
BELLEVILLE -- Cindy Shepheard was convicted Thursday night of killing her husband.
It was the end of the fourth day of her trial for the murder of her husband, Erick Shepheard, whose body was found with a bullet wound to the chest and head inside their burned out home at 6560 Press Road near Freeburg on Jan. 2, 2008.
Jurors -- 11 women and one man -- deliberated for more than two hours before announcing they had found Cindy Shepheard guilty of first-degree murder.
St. Clair County Circuit Judge John Baricevic set the sentencing date for Sept. 21. She faces a sentence ranging between 20 and 60 years in prison.
J. Lindsay, who is married to the victim's aunt, said he was pleased with the verdict.
"I would like to say it's nice to see justice done," Lindsay said.
Lindsay said the most powerful evidence during the trial came in the form of Cindy Shepheard's testimony.
"The indecisiveness of her testimony and the changes in her story convinced the jury," he said.
Defense lawyer Rick Roustio declined to comment on the verdict, though he said he believed "the actual incident" of Erick Shepheard's death deserved a charge of second-degree homicide.
"It's the baggage on the frontside and the backside that were hard to get over," Roustio said, alluding to allegations of drug use by his client that arose during the trial.
Cindy Shepheard, 36, testified earlier in the day that she feared her husband's beatings after she broke his rules.
It was just a week before the shooting that Cindy Shepheard said that her husband beat her backside with a hairbrush so badly that she could barely sit. Under questioning, she agreed that her husband had a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sort of temperament.
Cindy Shepheard's oldest daughter, 16-year-old Danielle Matusak, testified that she had never witnessed Erick Shepheard lay a hand on Cindy Shepheard. Danielle also testified that she had never seen bruises on her mother's body or had been told of physical abuse from her mother.
In contrast, she said that she had witnessed her mother throw things and hit and push during occasional arguments with the 34-year-old Erick Shepheard.
The teen described her deceased stepdad as "on the quiet side" but the two "had a really close relationship."
It was Erick Shepheard who was at home watching his stepdaughters Danielle, and her younger sister, Raven, and Erick and Cindy's older son, Keaton, on Dec. 31, 2007.
At the same time, Cindy Shepheard rang in 2008 with a cocaine binge at a male drug supplier's house in Swansea.
Cindy Shepheard said she knew her husband would be mad when she returned home on New Year's after being out all night and day with their 10-month-old son, Tanner.
While on the stand, she said that she didn't remember shooting her husband in the chest with the .38-caliber revolver that was given to her by the drug supplier.
"It's just a big blur," she said, in between sobs.
"I didn't know I had shot him. I don't really know. He was just angry with me. I didn't think he was hurt," she continued.
When talking to police in the days after the shooting, "she did not believe Erick Shepheard had died," Roustio said. "She thought he was at work."
She also said that she had no role in starting the fire that destroyed the family's home with her husband's body inside.
"She wants us to think that she was too abused to even remember what happened," Assistant State's Attorney Steve Sallerson said during closing arguments. "This is not an abused wife. This is a cocaine addict."
Reporter Mike Fitzgerald contributed information to this article. Contact reporter Maria Baran at mbaran@bnd.com or 239-2460.
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