Shawna Nelson tried to explain Thursday why witnesses and a good portion of physical evidence pointed to her as the one who shot Heather Garraus execution-style in January 2007.
At the end of her nearly three hours of testimony, she denied plotting to kill Garraus, who was married to her lover, then-Greeley police Officer Ignacio Garraus.
“Did you shoot her?” asked her lawyer, Kevin Strobel.
“No, I didn’t,” Nelson said.
Closing arguments in the first-degree-murder case are expected today.
Nelson testified she wanted to protect Heather Garraus and told her in a telephone conversation in 2004 that she was not having an affair with her husband.
“I told her I loved her and I would never get between her and Ig,” Nelson said.
But she lied to Heather Garraus then, Nelson said, adding that her conversation happened about a month after she told Ignacio she was pregnant with their child.
She later had an abortion. She and Ignacio conceived another child, this time a son that her husband, Ken Nelson, is raising, along with two children he had with Shawna. Ken Nelson is a former Weld County sheriff’s investigator.
Prosecutors claim Nelson gunned down Garraus because she wanted Ignacio all to herself.
Nelson, however, said she was over Ignacio and never wanted him to leave his wife.
She also wanted to stay with her husband. “We both came to the conclusion we didn’t want to leave the life we had,” Nelson said.
She denied going to a shooting range and imagining shooting Garraus, something a witness testified to earlier in the week.
Supposedly threatening text messages sent by Nelson to Ignacio and Heather Garraus were mostly misinterpreted, she told jurors.
A key witness against Nelson — former Weld County sheriff’s Deputy Michelle Moore — may have testified that Nelson plotted to kill Garraus because she was angry Nelson ended their sexual relationship, defense lawyers claimed.
Nelson testified she broke up with Moore the night before the shooting.
She said she owned no handguns the night of the killing because she had pawned them all. The mask police found in her truck after the shooting was not used for murdering Garraus but for Halloween, Nelson said.
Besides, she told jurors, she was driving to the liquor store at the time of the shooting.
Dr. John Carver, a forensic pathologist, testified earlier Thursday that Garraus was killed by two gunshot wounds — one at point-blank range on Garraus’ left temple.
A DNA analyst from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation — Yvonne Woods — testified that Shawna Nelson’s DNA was found on shoes discovered near the scene of the shooting. Other female DNA was also on the shoes, Woods told jurors.
CBI’s Alex Rugh said Nelson’s right hand and face tested positive for gunshot residue.
However, the mask found in Nelson’s truck and a left shoe found near the murder scene did not test positive for residue, Rugh said.
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
