BY KRISTEN DELGUZZI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Linda Khriss slumps on the witness stand at her aggravated murder trial.
(Yoni Pozner photo)
| ZOOM |
|
Linda Khriss's time on the witness stand Friday was an emotional journey.
In more than three hours of testimony, her demeanor ranged from teary to angry as she described her life with her husband, the moment she learned he had been gunned down and the way she says police tricked her into admitting a role in his death.
The Cheviot woman is charged with aggravated murder, accused of hiring a hit man to kill Maher Khrais. She could be sentenced to death if convicted. She says she did not want her husband dead and did not hire anyone to shoot him.
Police say Mrs. Khriss, 38, contracted with an employee at her grocery store to have her husband killed. But in an interview with police in December, she said she hired Ahmad Fawzi Issa to beat up her husband.
On Friday, she said even that story was wrong because Cincinnati homicide detectives made it up and told her what to say.
"Here is what we need you to say in order to get a conviction for Issa," she quoted police as saying. "With your help, we might nail him."
She said that based on that advice, she told them she had agreed to pay Mr. Issa $2,000 to beat up her husband. She was arrested minutes later.
"How'd you feel about making that statement?" defense attorney David Scacchetti asked.
"Stupid," Mrs. Khriss said. "I should have known better. But I trusted the cops. I never conspired with anybody."
During testimony earlier in the week, Cincinnati police detectives said Mrs. Khriss' version of events was not reality. They said she implicated herself in the crime without any help from them.
Her testimony is to continue Tuesday, when prosecutors question her before Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Ann Marie Tracey. During her testimony Friday, she frequently paused before answering questions or continuing.
But as she was about to describe how she felt the moment she learned her husband and brother-in-law, Ziad Khreis, had been gunned down in the parking lot of the family store, her composure vanished.
Overcome by stifled sobs, she closed her eyes and stopped speaking. Suddenly -- just as the jury was rushing from the courtroom -- her head tipped back and her body went limp.
As jurors filed past, she appeared to be unconscious, with her head rolling on her right shoulder. Moments later, she was taken in a wheelchair from the courtroom back to jail. She returned to continue her testimony 40 minutes later.
It was her second major outburst in her two-week murder trial. On Wednesday, she began wailing as the accused gunman, Andre Miles, testified that she ordered the hit on Mr. Khrais. Mr. Miles and Mr. Issa both could also be sentenced to death if convicted of similar charges.
Though Mrs. Khriss says she was abused by her husband -- he threw boiling coffee on her, stabbed her more than once, dragged her by her hair and beat her with a belt, she said -- she denied wanting him dead.
And even if she did, she said, she would not have turned to a middleman to seal the deal.
"I was raised in Chicago," said Mrs. Khriss, who is a native of Jordan and speaks in somewhat broken English. "If I want my husband killed, I am capable of going out there to find somebody myself. I don't need somebody to help me find somebody to kill my husband."
