Wife Tried For Husband's Murder; Defense is Suicide
Maggie
the husband's hands had no gunpowder residue on them. And that insurance
policy must have been pretty new if the suicide clause was still in effect.
From the Traverse City (MI) Record-Eagle:
February 17, 2000
Jury begins deliberations
Cynthia McDonnell accused of murdering husband
By PATRICK SULLIVAN
Record-Eagle staff writer
LELAND - Cynthia McDonnell's final betrayal of her husband came a day
after she murdered him, when she claimed he committed suicide in her effort to
beat a murder charge, prosecutors said in closing arguments Wednesday.
"When all else fails, let's blame the dead guy," Leelanau Prosecutor
Clarence Gomery told jurors.
It's now up to a jury to decide whether McDonnell murdered her husband
Daniel with a bullet to the back of his head, as he lay sleeping in the
couple's Bingham Township home early Dec. 31, 1998.
Daniel planned on throwing a 21st birthday party for his daughter just
days later, looked forward to buying a fishing boat, and had just beaten
cancer, Gomery said.
"This individual who was enjoying the fruits of life, making future
plans, was not going to commit suicide," he said. "It just doesn't make sense."
McDonnell's defense lawyer Peter Shumar said he believed Daniel not only
shot himself, but shot himself in the back of his head to make it look like a
robbery. That way, his children could collect $300,000 in life insurance that
would have otherwise been void.
Gomery countered in his rebuttal with a problem with that theory - why
would Daniel then have left a suicide note saying "I'm sorry," as McDonnell
told police she found and later destroyed?
A jury of seven men and five women will resume deliberations today after
just under two hours of deliberations Wednesday. McDonnell faces life in prison
without parole if convicted of first-degree murder.
Over seven days of testimony, jurors have listened attentively to
painstaking testimony about the bullet wound to the back of the head,
McDonnell's evolving story to police - first, that her husband was killed in a
robbery, then, when pressed by police, that he killed himself and she ditched
the gun to make it look like a robbery - and evidence that McDonnell withdrew
more than $50,000 from a trust fund set up for a disabled relative.
If the opinion of one of the alternate jurors removed randomly Wednesday
is any indication, Gomery has made a good case in favor of murder.
"I thought the evidence provided by the prosecution was so overwhelming
that I would have had to have voted guilty," said juror Marsha Gillispie.
Even a defense witness who testified unequivocally Tuesday he believed
the shooting was a suicide was not enough to create reasonable doubt in
Gillispie's mind.
"He thinks that he's a little better than everyone else," Gillispie said
of Dr. Ljubisa Dragovic, the chief medical examiner for Oakland County, who
testified that suicide was "more than clear" after her reviewed an autopsy
report, but who never examined the body.
Jurors will have many details to sort out, like testimony from one of the
last defense witnesses, Steve Johnson, who said his friend told him in April
1998 that he had cancer and it upset him.
"He told me he'd just as soon blow his head off than to go through what
his dad had gone through," said Johnson, who worked with McDonnell at the Grand
Traverse Pavilions.
But in cross-examination from Gomery, Johnson said McDonnell's mood was
much better several months later after successful surgery.
"He told me that things were looking pretty good, he thought they got it
all," he said. "He was looking forward to doing a lot of fishing."
In his closing argument, Shumar maintained that his client's behavior
could be explained by the evidence. Earlier, a psychologist testified that
McDonnell's behavior in the hours after discovering her husband could be a
normal reaction to a traumatic event.
Witnesses testified that after Daniel was shot, Cynthia took her daughter
on a four-hour shopping trip and got her hair done, then returned home after
buying hamburgers for her family, including one for Daniel.
"How could you buy a hamburger for everyone, including your husband, if
you know what you know?" Shumar asked. "None of us have that answer."
He argued her motive for covering up the suicide and then changing her
story was noble.
"I believe that all of us have changed our story at one point in time or
another, it's human. She did it for her children."
Maggie
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