The sister of a woman accused of gunning down another woman in a credit union parking lot in Greeley said Sunday the actions don’t fit the sister she knows.
Police say Shawna Louise Nelson fatally shot Heather Garraus on Tuesday night. Garraus was married to Greeley police Officer Ignacio Garraus, Nelson’s former lover. Nelson is married to a Weld County sheriff’s investigator.
Shawna “never would have put her future with her children in jeopardy,” Debbie Smith said in an interview Sunday. “Something had to have happened that day, and I don’t know what it was.”
Nelson’s life revolved around her three kids – a daughter, 6, a son, 8, and another son who is 10 months old. She quit her job after 15 years as a dispatcher for the Greeley Police Department to stay at home with the kids, Smith said.
“She was active in Cub Scouts, swim lessons and a reading club,” Smith said. “Those kids came first.”
So when Smith saw the police cars outside her sister’s house last Tuesday night, she knew something wasn’t right.
Nelson is expected to be formally charged today with first-degree murder.
Authorities with the Weld County district attorney and the Greeley Police Department did not return calls for comment on Sunday.
Nelson did have an affair with Ignacio Garraus for three years, Smith said, but it was over, even though Nelson had Garraus’ son in 2006.
Nelson and her husband, Ken Nelson, filed for divorce in 2005, but reconciled when Shawna Nelson learned she was pregnant with Garraus’ son, Smith said.
“When she told Ken, he said, ‘The divorce is off. We are a family,”‘ Smith said.
Ignacio Garraus and Ken Nelson have asked The Denver Post not to contact them.
“I know there was still an emotional bond,” Smith said of her sister and Garraus. “As far as we know, the romantic part was over.”
Smith says Heather Garraus learned the baby was her husband’s only a month ago. She wouldn’t say what the relationship was like between the two women or if either woman had threatened the other.
Nelson suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of all three children, Smith said. She was taking antidepressants, but recently stopped taking them.
But even with the postpartum depression, Smith says, her sister was never violent and had never used a gun.
“I have never seen her use one, no. All of this would be 150 percent against her character,” Smith said.
Smith expressed sympathy for Heather Garraus’ 9-year-old daughter.
“I don’t want to be insensitive to the pain that that child must feel,” Smith said.
Smith says she understands why people have already convicted her sister in their minds, but she asks the public to wait for all the facts to come out.
“She is a daughter, she is a sister, she is a wife, she is a mother,” Smith said of Nelson. “This is just unthinkable for her.”
If Nelson pulled the trigger, Smith says, then there was some sort of psychological breakdown.
“If all the police department knew about this and all the dispatchers knew and all the sheriff’s knew this was happening, then why didn’t anyone say, ‘Whoa, we have a problem here’?” Smith said. “I wish we had all of those answers. I wish that we knew.”
Staff writer Felisa Cardona can be reached at 303-954-1219 or at fcardona@denverpost.com.
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