:seeya: Hi everybody - Newbie here.
Melanie - I saw your post about "Showdown in the Bedroom" early this morning and couldn't respond because I wasn't a member.
I agree that there are a lot of eerie similarities between the two cases, especially these things...
- Claimed her husband had that "look in his eyes" that she had seen before when he was abusive, she only took out the gun to "keep him at bay" and that he was coming after her and she had nowhere to run so she shot him even though there was a door she could have used to escape.
- Claimed her husband said, "I'll eff*** kill you, b*tch" to show how mad he was. (That exact statement just blew me away. Did somebody give Jodi a script from that case?)
- Claimed she shot him in self defense because her life was in jeopardy, even though the evidence contradicted her story.
- Claimed she stayed with him even though he had been abusive in the past because there was a good side to him as well as a bad side.
- Changing story (her son testified that she him her husband never came after her).
- When all else failed, during her retrial, she conveniently suffered from amnesia and could no longer remember shooting him, how many times she shot him, or even holding the gun. However, she remembered everything that benefited her.
To her credit (as opposed to Jodi's) she had the following going for her and...
- She called 911 after shooting him and he was still alive when paramedics got there.
- She had a well documented history of abuse; many previous 911 calls and ER visits.
- Independent and family witnesses who confirmed history of physical abuse.
- Leg injury from a previous accident, which left her with a disability that required her using a cane. Goes to her story of why she couldn't quickly run out of the room to escape from him.
Even with all that on her side, the jury came back with a guilty verdict. She would be in jail if she hadn't entered into a plea deal in which she admitted to murdering him in exchange for community service, probation, and not ever saying she killed him in self defense.
What I found odd is that the Judge encouraged a plea deal when the jury had only deliberated for one day. It's unfortunate that he made the decision to accept the plea deal when he had the sealed verdict in his hand. She was seconds away from hearing that guilty verdict.
Jodi won't be so lucky - she has nothing going for her.