Matthew Terrion claims he drew gun to scare estranged wife, but it went off
By Ed Meyer
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Friday, Mar 12, 2010
Former Glenwillow police officer Matthew Terrion (right) talks to his co-defense attorney Scott Rilley in Judge Patricia Cosgrove's courtroom prior to the start of the afternoon session in the murder case against him on Thursday in Akron. (Phil Masturzo/Akron Beacon Journal)
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Matthew Terrion loved to collect guns.
The former Glenwillow police officer, who is accused of murder in the April shooting death of his estranged wife, told a Summit County jury Thursday that he kept about 60 guns and five silencers — valued at maybe $25,000 — in a federally registered trust for the future education of his two young sons.
Shortly before 6 p.m. on April 29, Terrion testified, he gathered up the boys in his pickup truck and took them to dinner at his wife's condominium in Twinsburg.
He said he also took a shoe box that he had packed with a loaded, 9 mm handgun fitted with a special barrel and silencer.
Terrion described the package as a present for his 34-year-old wife, Cherilyn Terrion.
''I was going to give it to her. I spent all my time with my guns,'' he said, ''and it was just a gesture . . . to tell her she was more important to me than my guns.''
Some four hours later, after discover
ing evidence that his wife had sex with another man that morning, Terrion said, he went into a rage, retrieved the gun from his truck and shot his wife once in the top of the head. She was killed instantly.
Prosecutors have depicted the crime as murder.
Defense lawyers have admitted Terrion shot his wife but have called it manslaughter.
After closing arguments this morning and instructions on the law from the judge, the Summit County Common Pleas Court jury will get the case to decide Terrion's fate.
If it is a unanimous verdict for murder, he would face a prison sentence of at least 15 years to life.
A conviction for manslaughter would lessen the sentence to the state-mandated guideline of three to 10 years.
Terrion also is charged with tampering with evidence, various gun specifications and misdemeanor domestic violence.
Before Terrion took the stand, the courtroom was cleared for a closed-door hearing during which Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove disallowed one of the defense's chief witnesses.
A Bay Village man, who had sex with Cherilyn Terrion about 1:45 on the morning of the shooting, had been waiting for hours in the second-floor courtroom rotunda to testify.
After court adjourned for the night, defense lawyers Donald Malarcik and Scott Riley declined to comment on Cosgrove's decision, saying they did not think it was appropriate.
Malarcik had said in opening statements Tuesday that the sexual encounter between the two was arranged through the Internet from Cherilyn Terrion's personal ad.
She and the Bay Village man had exchanged 58 text messages in the hours leading up to the shooting, Malarcik said.
When Cherilyn Terrion finally met the man at the front door of her condo — the time was fixed at 1:38 a.m. — Malarcik said, ''he thought she was a stripper soliciting men online.''
It was under that bizarre scenario — a virtual roller coaster of up-and-down emotions for Matthew Terrion, Malarcik said — that the slaying took place.
Matthew Terrion, 39, worked part time for the Glenwillow police for about two years in the early 1990s, he said.
In 1995, when the police job wasn't going anywhere, he moved to Las Vegas, where he worked as a salesman and substitute teacher, he said.
It was there that he met his future wife, a graphic design artist. They were married in 2003, had two sons — now ages 3 and 6 — and moved back to Ohio in 2005 and bought a home in Lakewood.
Not long after that, Matthew Terrion said, they were some $400,000 in debt — $70,000 from student loans financed on credit cards — and filed for bankruptcy.
The home went into foreclosure, they moved in with Matthew Terrion's parents in Glenwillow, and the marriage rapidly deteriorated, he said.
Cherilyn Terrion filed for divorce on April 13, 2009, but withdrew the petition on April 27 after they began a reconciliation.
On the previous Sunday, Terrion said, he and his wife and the boys spent most of the day together at Headlands beach in Mentor, building sand castles and skipping stones.
''I couldn't have been happier,'' he told the jury. ''It was the first time in probably a year that we were happy. . . . I thought it was the best day of my life.''
After dinner at the Twinsburg condo April 29, he said, he took the boys back to his parents' home in Glenwillow and went out to buy his wife a flat-screen television at a nearby Wal-Mart.
They unpacked it together, he began hooking it up, and she went into her bedroom to work on her computer.
It was on a trip to the bathroom, Terrion said, that he discovered evidence of the sexual encounter — a condom wrapper in the trash.
''I was angry. I was disgusted. I was just furious, because I knew what it meant,'' he testified. Asked by Malarcik to explain, Terrion said he knew the joyful reunion ''was all a lie.''
An argument followed and she told him to leave.
Terrion said he went outside to retrieve the shoe box from his truck, with his wife quickly trailing him.
They went back inside, he threw the shoe box on her bed and pulled out the gun.
''At the time,'' he testified, ''I just wanted to scare her. I didn't want to hurt her.''
As Terrion brought out the gun, aiming it at her shoulders, he said, ''she grabbed at it and the gun fired.''
Terrion has been held in the Summit County Jail in lieu of $1 million bond since his arrest.
Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com.
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