Shawna Nelson — accused of killing her lover’s wife in Greeley in January 2007 – testified that she wanted to protect Heather Garraus and told her that she was not having an affair with her husband Ignacio Garraus.
“I told her I love her and I would never get between her and Ig,” Shawna Nelson said.
Nelson admitted she lied to Heather Garraus in 2004, adding her conversation with Garraus happened about a month after she told Ignacio she was pregnant with his child.
Nelson is on trial for first-degree murder for allegedly shooting to death Heather Garraus outside of her workplace in Greeley.
She also told jurors about an illicit affair she had with Michelle Moore, who testified against her earlier in the trial.
Nelson also denied she went to a shooting range and imagined shooting Heather Garraus, something another witness had testified.
She said she never wanted Ignacio Garraus to leave his wife, Heather. She also wanted to stay with her husband, Ken, even thought Shawna and Ignacio were having a three-year affair.
“We both came to the conclusion we didn’t want to leave the life we had,” she testified.
Shawna tried to explain away why she sent supposedly threatening text messages to Ignacio and Heather Garraus. Most, she said, were misinterpreted. One text message, which ended with the phrase “Be Prepared,” only meant that Nelson was going to get child support from Ignacio for their son, Shawna testified.
“I was angry. I couldn’t believe Ig would abandon (his son) like that.”
She told the jury she owned no handguns at the time of Heather Garraus’ shooting. She said she pawned two handguns, including one a few days before the Jan. 23, 2007, killing of Garraus. That was to pay for a trip to Las Vegas.
There will be at least one other witness for the defense in addition to Nelson, defense attorney Kevin Strobel said.
Prosecutors rested their case early this afternoon following the testimony of Dr. John Carver, a forensic pathologist.
Carver told jurors Garraus was killed by two gunshot wounds — one at point-blank range on Garraus’s left temple.
A DNA analyst from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation – Yvonne Woods – also testified that Shawna Nelson’s DNA was found on the shoes discovered near the scene of the shooting. Other female DNA was also on the shoes, Woods told jurors.
CBI’s Alex Rugh also 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 for residue, Rugh said.
He also said gunshot residue could be transferred from a police officer or police car if the residue is already present.
This morning jurors in Fort Collins heard audiotapes recorded while Nelson was in jail.
Nelson told her husband, Weld County sheriff’s deputy Ken Nelson, that she suffered from blackouts and had no memory of the Jan. 23, 2007, shooting.
Nelson’s phone conversations with her husband were recorded while she was at the Weld County Jail, facing charges in Garraus’s shooting.
Nelson said on the tapes that she couldn’t recall what happened the day of the murder but remembers finding herself waking up in front of a liquor store.
Nelson also complained about her jail surroundings, according to the call. “It’s just a bunch of concrete in here,” she told her husband.
