Defendant: ‘If I didn’t leave I was probably going to die’
After plunging an eight-inch knife blade in her husband 38 times, slitting his throat and wrists and bashing his skull with a hammer, Ashley Schutt coddled the dying tower of a man and covered him with a blue comforter, she testified
LAWRENCEVILLE — After plunging an eight-inch knife blade in her husband 38 times, slitting his throat and wrists and bashing his skull with a hammer, Ashley Schutt coddled the dying tower of a man and covered him with a blue comforter, she testified.
Though Greg Schutt had bloodied her nose, left a “basketball-sized” bruise on her back, stomped her with military boots, pulled chunks of hair from her scalp, choked her, tossed her against a bathtub, tables and kitchen appliances and besieged her with all manner of vile insults during the course of their rocky, nine-year marriage, Ashley couldn’t bear to see him so helpless, she testified.
<
And then, with the same knife, she inflicted wounds on herself.
“I cut my arm because I couldn’t move,” Ashley told a prosecutor. “It shocked me a little bit to get me going ... I was in shock, ma’am.”
Ashley testified for several hours Wednesday in the climax of her week-long murder trial, shedding some light on the mysterious hours between her going to sleep at 2:30 a.m. on July 25, 2009 and her frantic pounding for help on a neighbor’s door. Other answers were lost in the heat of the moment, Ashley said.
Events leading up to Greg’s death included an argument over her leaving a stove burner on, after Greg had demanded she fix his dinner, she said. She’d worked until midnight at a call-center in Newton County, had popped an Ambien and was preparing to sleep when Greg dragged her in their Lawrenceville home, she testified.
“I looked at him and said go ahead and hit me — it’ll be the last time you put your hands on me,” Ashley testified. “I told him I was leaving.”
Defense attorney Thomas Clegg led his client through recollections of a marriage that seemed more like an emotional quagmire than pleasant memory lane.
Ashley, donning a long black jacket and charcoal blouse, her face gaunt and pale, talked of the tumultuous years the couple spent on military bases from Nebraska to Japan. Each of their four separations were precipitated by his violence, and each time she returned sparked a short-lived honeymoon period, she testified.
Prosecutors believe Ashley plotted to kill Greg and overtook him in his sleep.
At 6 feet, 5 inches, Greg dwarfed his wife and outweighed her by 129 pounds. His abuses prompted dozens of doctor’s visits but no police reports or protective orders, she testified. Prosecutors believe some of the injuries could have stemmed from two vehicle crashes and a tripping accident at Discover Mills Mall months before the killing.
The turmoil between the couple had come to a head days before the killing, Ashley testified.
“I knew that if I didn’t leave I was probably going to die,” she said.
By afternoon, Clegg’s coaxing of details in support of his self-defense theory morphed into an unflinching grilling by Assistant District Attorney Tana Brackin; Ashley’s demeanor also appeared to switch. The slumping, soft-spoken 29-year-old who spoke between long, deep breaths in the morning later bristled at Brackin’s questions, often answering in unenthusastic tones or annoyance.
Brackin repeatedly asked Ashley to stand a couple feet from the jury and view gruesome crime scene and autopsy photos, pointing out certain wounds and asking exactly how they came to be. The tactic seemed to burn the defendant.
Ashley said she only turned to violence when Greg attacked her and wouldn’t let go.
At one point Brackin counted five stab wounds in Greg’s back, inquiring why she stabbed him in the back in an effort to get away. Ashley was incredulous. Their bedroom, Ashley pointed out, was lit only by a small, bedside lamp.
“Do you remember,” Brackin asked nonchalantly, pointing to a courtroom monitor, “is that how your husband looked, after you killed him?”
Ashley echoed a reply she used all afternoon: “I don’t remember.”
Brackin made Ashley specify that at least some of the stabbings took place in the couple’s bed, and that the sex toy she claimed Greg assaulted her with that morning actually penetrated her.
Investigators have testified that a negative rape exam first discredited Ashley’s claims that her home was stormed by masked intruders who raped her and killed Greg.
Brackin implied through questioning that the slaying was overkill.
“You feared your husband even after he was dead?”
“He has control over me today,” Ashley replied.
Closing arguments in the trial are expected this morning. Women jurors outnumber men 9 to 5, including alternates. Ashley faces life in prison.
No comments:
Post a Comment