His attorney suggests judge consider lesser manslaughter
By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
Updated: 01/25/2010 11:45:28 PM CST
Ten years after Jean Weaver died at her family's White Bear Lake home, her husband once again faces trial for murder.
Gordon Douglas Weaver, 52, was convicted in 2005 of his wife's death, but that conviction was thrown out by the state Court of Appeals.
Weaver's second trial started Monday in Ramsey County District Court with his defense attorney suggesting several "lesser" options than the two counts of second-degree murder he's charged with.
The case stems from the death of Jean Weaver on Oct. 16, 1999, after the couple had argued in the basement of their home.
Gordon Weaver pushed his wife with his forearm, defense attorney Joe Friedberg said Monday, causing her to fall backward, try to steady herself on a clothes-drying rack, then fall into a concrete laundry tub.
The fall caused a bad gash in her head. She fell unconscious to the floor.
Gordon Weaver checked for a pulse and breathing, but detected neither, Friedberg said. Believing he had killed her, he set the house on fire and ran out.
Jean Weaver, 40, was pronounced dead a half-hour later.
Prosecutors said Monday that Weaver both "forcefully assaulted" his wife and committed arson. A medical examiner will testify that Jean Weaver was alive and breathing when her husband poured accelerant and lit the blaze, said Assistant County Attorney Steve Pfaffe.
Pfaffe provided example upon example of Weaver's efforts to deceive investigators — from the first police interview on the day
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his wife died to his faking his own death near Chicago. His whereabouts were unknown for the next four years until police found he had moved to a seaside town in Oregon and was living under a different name.
But the seeds of the Oct. 16 tragedy could be found in letters Gordon Weaver had stored in a file labeled "Jean," Pfaffe said.
The couple had been having marital trouble, Pfaffe said.
In a letter dated Sept. 17, 1999, a month before she died, Gordon Weaver had written a letter addressed to Jean in which he alluded to "vocalizing" a wish to do her harm "in a state of panic and desperation."
"Haven't you ever wanted to kill somebody?" he wrote in another letter. "Why didn't you? ... I could even think if you died tomorrow, my pain would be less."
Pfaffe said Jean Weaver told her family doctor that problems with her husband were causing her to suffer nausea and dry heaves.
"It sounded to the doctor like she wanted to obtain a divorce," Pfaffe said.
Prosecutors have charged Weaver with second-degree murder while committing an arson and second-degree murder while assaulting his wife.
The defense has asked that the trial be decided by the judge in the case, Salvador Rosas, rather than by a jury. Defense attorney Friedberg said Rosas should choose lesser options than murder in his verdict on Weaver.
"There is no question Mr. Weaver is guilty of arson," he said. But if the state can't prove that it was the fire that killed her, there can be no conviction on second-degree murder by arson.
As to the charge that Weaver killed his wife during third-degree assault, that would require intent to harm her, Friedberg said. Weaver testified previously that he did not mean to hurt her.
The alternative, then, would be a first-degree or second-degree manslaughter charge — or acquittal, Friedberg said.
Opening the testimony Monday was Jean Weaver's oldest sister, Kathy Rysgaard.
Rysgaard said that on the day Jean Weaver died, she was scheduled to ride with Rysgaard and her husband to a family cabin for the weekend.
When she didn't show, the Rysgaards drove to the Weaver house at 1989 Oak Knoll Drive.
"Her car was in the garage," she said. "The picture window was black. The front door was black. I knew something was wrong."
Emily Gurnon can be reached at 651-228-5522.
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