Barbara Sheehan testifies on killing her husband

‘I just wanted him to stop and not kill me’

ANTOINETTE KELLY,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Wednesday, September 21, 2011, 7:53 AM

Updated Wednesday, September 21, 2011, 12:28 PM

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Barbara Sheehan testifies on killing her husband

Photo by Xanthos/News

Barbara Sheehan has told a Queens Criminal Court that she kept shooting her husband, a retired NYPD cop, until he couldn’t hurt her anymore.

“I knew he was positively going to kill me,” she told a Queens court on Monday.

“He would always chase me and catch me. So I knew he would catch me. So I shot the gun. I don’t know how many times I shot. I just fired. I stopped firing when I didn’t feel threatened anymore. I grabbed the guns, closed the door and ran downstairs.”

Sheehan, a 50-year-old mother of two is on trial for the murder of her husband Raymond, on February 18, 2008. Her defense maintains she committed the murder as she feared for her own life.

“He’d hit me on my nose, in my eyes. I couldn’t physically fight him back. He was a lot bigger than me,’’ she said, according the New York Post.

Sheehan told the court that her and her husband had argued the night before the murder about a proposed vacation to Florida. She alleges that the following morning the argument once again erupted as her husband demanded that they go on vacation.
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As she had been beaten badly on a previous holiday, Sheehan says she refused to go. She told the court he then held a gun to her head and she testified it was then she realized she had to make a run for it.

She briefly visited a friend’s house before returning home to collect some cash enabling her to leave Raymond for once and for all.

“I just had to get away,” Sheehan testified. “I didn’t want him to hurt me or my kids.’’

Sheehan said she grabbed one of her husband’s loaded guns as she feared the worst “thinking maybe he wouldn’t shoot me if I had the gun.”

She claimed her husband then emerged from the bathroom and had another gun in his hand.

“He said he was going to kill me,” Sheehan told the court, sobbing through her words. “So I shot the gun I had in my hand. He had the big gun, I had the little gun. I don’t know how many times I shot it. I couldn’t aim it. I just shot. I never shot a gun before.”

She testified her husband dropped the gun and then slid down between the bathtub and toilet.

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feliciamaisey | Sep 28, 2011, 09:52 AM EDT

It is not for anyone to judge how or why women remain in abused situations, what the make excuses for or what they fear--that belongs to them alone, and perhaps also to their abusers and children, but for society to condemned abused women as if they enjoy it or accept it is nonsense. The sad truth i women stay with mates who abuse them for many reasons and even when they leave they are haunted by the trauma they suffered. It never goes away, and the fear manifests itself in ways that are too complicated to understand or justify here. When women kill their abusers they almost always spend the rest of their life in a prison other than the one they'd lived in throughout the abuse and this is not the case for abusers, who see little jail time and who almost always walk. It is sad that this woman was married to an officer, who had been sworn to uphold the laws of society, but was breaking both marital vows and societal law by being abusive, and in a case like hers, it is not inconceivable that she felt like any agency might report her ase to the police, ergo it'd come back to her husband and she'd suffer even more. Sad she killed and terrible that she sits rotting in a cell, playing out her story for all the world to judge. I hope justice can be achieved for her and her children, but somehow I fear it won't.

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Rebelforce | Sep 21, 2011, 03:19 PM EDT

This woman didn't live in some isolated backwater in Appalachia. She lived right smack in the heart of NYC where there are literally scores of organizations and resources waiting to help woman with abusive husbands. Barbara chose to take the law into her own hands and deliver a death sentence to her allegedly abusive husband. Unless we want to live in a society that rewards vigilante justice, Barbara Sheehan needs to be convicted and punished for the murder of another human being.

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LinLinisme | Sep 21, 2011, 01:36 PM EDT

Good for you- if he was that bad and would beat you--you just keep your head up and I hope they realize that it was self-defense.

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CroughPatrick | Sep 21, 2011, 09:31 AM EDT

Her attorney is Michael Dowd. He used to be corrupt but now he represents battered women.

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