BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON -- In the hours before Herman Colwell Jr. was fatally shot, he beat Sherry Mariana and forced her to have sex with him, her attorney said.
"For almost 24 hours, she had been abused by a wild man," Clayton Napier said Monday during opening statements in Ms. Mariana's murder trial in Butler County Common Pleas Court. "She was reasonably in fear of death."
But assistant county prosecutor Pat Moeller said she shot Mr. Colwell, who was her boyfriend, because he refused to pay for replacing her car windows, which he had smashed with his fists.
He contended that Ms. Mariana was in no danger when she shot Mr. Colwell. Ms. Mariana is charged with murder in the Dec. 21 shooting at her house in Hamilton. Her trial began Monday before Judge Matthew Crehan.
Mr. Colwell, 27, of Monroe, died from a gunshot wound just below the right eye, according to the coroner's report.
After the shooting, Ms. Mariana's 19-year-old son, David, called 911, police said.
Hamilton Police Officer Dominic Spinelli testified that when he entered Ms. Mariana's house, Mr. Colwell's body was in a sitting position on a living-room couch with a shotgun across his lap.
Mr. Colwell broke the windows of Ms. Mariana's car because he was angry that she was working at a bar and didn't come straight home from work, according to police testimony in a Dec. 30 preliminary hearing.
Mr. Colwell had agreed to replace the windows, but after having sex with her, he changed his mind, said police.
Ms. Mariana shot Mr. Colwell when he was on the telephone talking to his mother, Mr. Moeller said.
But Mr. Napier said Ms. Mariana is a victim of battered women's syndrome. "She was so traumatized that she has little or no recollection of those incidents," he said. Her confused mental state explains the conflicting statements she gave to police, he said.
Mr. Colwell was intoxicated when he was shot, according to the coroner's report. He had a blood-alcohol content of 0.15 percent, above the 0.10 percent limit for driving.
Mr. Napier said Ms. Mariana and her son "begged him to leave the house" that night.
