Arapahoe County – Broke, depressed, physically pained and soon to be homeless, Phillip Effland saw no other way out.
His wife and daughter agreed, and the three made a pact to die together. But on a summer night last year, a blurry line prosecutors call murder came between them.
“What happened was suicide,” Effland’s attorney, public defender Steve McCrohan, told jurors Tuesday. “Each individual chose to take his or her life.”
Effland simply didn’t die, his attorney asserted.
Effland had parceled out his pain pills to his loved ones and himself. But later, he found his wife clinging to life, so he fired two bullets in her head.
Effland, 58, is standing trial for premeditated murder and assisted suicide.
Testimony began Tuesday, with few moments more striking than when a crime scene analyst explained a photo of Denise Effland’s bullet wounds, as she slumped in the recliner of the family’s Centennial home.
Jurors’ eyes darted from the projected photograph to Phillip Effland, whose gaze was locked on the screen.
Phillip Effland and his daughter, Brenna, suffered from bipolar disorder. Brenna Effland, 24, had attempted suicide before, and Denise Effland had health problems and was deeply depressed, McCrohan said.
When the family decided to die, they had hit bottom.
An eviction notice from the sheriff’s department was affixed to the door of their home. Phillip Effland had lost another job, the family’s old Buick was broken, past-due power bills were in the thousands of dollars.
On the kitchen table, Phillip parceled out his pain pills, mostly OxyContin, which he took for severe back pain. After Brenna and Denise swallowed the pills, they went to the living room and covered themselves in blankets.
Meanwhile, Phillip Effland went to the garage, where he retrieved a .38 caliber revolver.
Its chambers were filled with hollow-point bullets, which are known for exploding inside the body, “the most deadly round,” said prosecutor Dan May.
Phillip Effland hid the gun so as not to scare the women. “An alternative means of termination,” he would later tell an investigator. He added, “I had promised Denise I would make sure she was dead.”
He drifted off that night, just like his wife and daughter. He awoke about 2:30 a.m. His daughter was dead in a recliner, but his wife’s chest still rose and fell, according to testimony.
After shooting his wife, Effland cleaned the gun, washed his hands, and placed a dish towel on her shoulder to absorb the blood.
In his opening remarks, May offered a list of deliberate, if not rational, decisions Effland made. “He made a decision not to shoot himself,” May told the jury of 10 women and three men.
On Aug. 1, the Efflands’ other daughter called authorities when she could not reach her sister or parents. Deputies found a note on the back door, telling Brenna’s boyfriend not to come in, to call police and to make sure the other daughter got the family cat.
Deputies testified that they found Phillip Effland curled up on a bedroom floor moaning and frothing slightly at the mouth.
The family had left their drivers licenses lined up in front of a Celtic cross next to the television, next to a note asking that their remains be cremated.
