FORT COLLINS — A shaken Shawna Nelson on Monday watched herself weep and express confusion on a police videotape taken shortly after the execution-style shooting of Heather Garraus on Jan. 23, 2007.
Nelson was videotaped during an interview with Greeley Police Detective Greg Tharp. Through most of the half-hour interview, Nelson says she doesn’t understand why she is being questioned about the murder.
“I’m freaking out, Greg. I don’t know,” Nelson tells Tharp.
Nelson is on trial for first-degree murder in the death of Garraus. Prosecutors say Nelson wanted Garraus dead because she was married to Nelson’s lover, Greeley Police Officer Ignacio Garraus.
Nelson at the time was married to then-Weld County sheriff’s investigator Ken Nelson.
Since the trial began last week, Shawna Nelson has shown little emotion except for smiling and waving to friends and family in the courtroom.
But on Monday, she became tearful as she watched the video where she told Tharp she had spent a normal day Jan. 23, 2007, including going to the liquor store about the time Heather Garraus was shot.
“I wasn’t there, I don’t know what to say,” she whispers to Tharp.
Tharp, the lead investigator in the case, testified Monday that he knew Nelson as a police dispatcher and respected her abilities.
“She was a great dispatcher,” Tharp said. “She was calm in a crisis.”
Tharp also said he was aware of rumors that Nelson was having an affair with Ignacio Garraus.
Earlier Monday, District Judge Roger Klein ruled that prosecutors could not admit evidence of Nelson threatening the wives of other men — many of them police officers — with whom she had affairs.
Prosecutor Cliff Riedel said Monday he would likely offer immunity to former Weld County Deputy Michelle Moore and Ken Nelson so they could testify against Shawna Nelson.
Moore is charged with conspiring with Shawna Nelson to kill Garraus. Ken Nelson is charged with taking the handgun that was used to shoot Garraus. He later gave the gun to police; an expert at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation determined the gun was the murder weapon.
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
