OPELIKA, Ala. (AP) - A woman testified Monday at her ex-husband’s capital murder trial that he pulled alongside a family van at a community college and started shooting, killing her mother and leaving herself and two others injured.
Bethany Watson Mitchell was the first witness in the trial of 37-year-old Thomas Franklin May III.
Mitchell said her mother, Brenda Watson; her grandmother, Maude Ethell Marshall; and her 4-year-old daughter were picking her up from classes on April 6, 2011, and had stopped near the main academic building at Southern Union State Community College in Opelika. Mitchell said she had just entered the middle seat of the Toyota van when a white vehicle pulled alongside the driver’s side. She said she didn’t realize it was her estranged husband until she saw his face and a pistol aimed out the passenger window.
“The defendant opened fire on our vehicle,” she said. She said several of the bullets hit the driver’s door, where her mother was seated.
Her mother was hit five times and killed. She and her grandmother were wounded by bullets, and her daughter was hurt by flying glass.
In opening statements Monday, Lee County prosecutor Kisha Abercrombie said at least 12 shots were fired before May drove off. She said he returned to the shooting scene three hours later and was arrested.
May has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental defect to capital murder and attempted murder charges. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. May and his wife were divorced after the shooting and she dropped May as her last name.
Mitchell testified that she and her then-husband had not been living together since summer 2010 because he was seeing another woman. She said May had twice been the target of domestic violence calls to the Opelika police. She said he had threatened her and her family members, and he shoved her down and choked her on one occasion.
She had obtained a protective order against him the day before the shooting. “I was asking for a divorce,” she said.
Defense attorneys objected to some testimony about the troubled marriage, but Circuit Judge Jacob Walker allowed it, saying it would show the defendant’s mental state.
When describing the shooting, Mitchell said her husband was yelling when he fired repeatedly. She said she couldn’t hear all of it, but his message was that she couldn’t keep their daughter from him.
Prosecutors played 911 emergency calls for the jury. Several people at the community college called to report multiple shots and seeing a white Jeep, driven by a man, leaving the scene.
In opening statements, defense attorney William Wayne Whatley told jurors, “There are going to be many things presented to you in this case that we won’t disagree with.”
He also told jurors to listen carefully to the testimony, which is expected to take at least two weeks. “It doesn’t operate like television,” he said.
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