Self-Defense or Cold-Blooded Murder? Trial Begins for Mom Charged With Killing Neighbor

Story here. Excerpt:

'FORT DODGE, Iowa – A woman forced a 20-year-old neighbor to write a diary framing her ex-husband in a murder-for-hire scheme and then killed him because she didn't think he could keep his role a secret, a prosecutor said Wednesday at her first-degree murder trial.

Prosecutor Douglas Hammerand told jurors in an opening statement that Tracey Richter invited Dustin Wehde to her home on Dec. 13, 2001 and forced him to create a diary claiming he had been hired by her first husband, John Pitman, to kill her and her 11-year-old son Bert.
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The prosecutor said as part of the plan, Richter had Wehde, a loner who had spent time hanging out with her husband, back later that night and shot him nine times from two guns. Three shots that went through the back of Wehde's head would have been instantly fatal, he said.

Richter, 45, of Omaha, is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting at her former home in Early, a small town 100 miles northwest of Des Moines. She claims she acted in self-defense and was hailed as a hero after the shooting by some gun rights advocates and TV personality Montel Williams, who applauded her story on national television.

She blew a kiss at her fiancee, who sat in the front row, as she entered the Fort Dodge courtroom. But she appeared to fight back tears as defense attorney Scott Bandstra shared her version of events -- that Wehde and another man broke into her home and strangled her with pantyhose before she was able to break free, unlock her gun safe and shoot Wehde. When he tried to get up, she shot him the last time with the second gun, the attorney said.'