Wife in murder trial loses composure

The Queens woman accused of killing her husband, a retired New York police officer, fell apart on the witness stand Wednesday -- weeping, clutching her chest, gagging and gasping for air -- when asked to pick up one of the guns prosecutors say she used to shoot him in their home.

"I'm afraid I'm going to get sick," Barbara Sheehan said, barely able to glance at the .38-caliber revolver on the witness stand next to her. "I don't want to do it."

The Howard Beach secretary has been charged with murdering Raymond Sheehan, a former NYPD sergeant. On Monday Barbara Sheehan, 50, described what she said was nearly two decades of emotional and physical abuse.

Prosecutors say she shot her husband 11 times using two handguns that he kept loaded. She says the shooting, which has drawn the support of domestic violence activists, was self-defense.

"Living with the man I lived with, I tried to survive the best I could," she testified.

Assistant District Attorney Debra Pomodore asked Sheehan questions about her husband's life insurance policies and the moments leading to the shooting during of cross-examination.

She also asked about a 911 call Sheehan's sister made, in which a woman who sounds like Barbara Sheehan says in the background, "He was laughing at me . . . and boom! boom! boom!"

In her third day on the witness stand, Sheehan was often contradictory and claimed to not remember signing checks her two children had written to her -- proceeds from their father's life insurance policies. She said that they helped her pay the bills, but that she did not specifically benefit from the money. The children got hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The children, Jennifer, 25, and Raymond, 21, have both said that their father was abusive, and that they lived in fear of him. Raymond Sheehan testified later Wednesday of a palpable tension in their home and broke down in tears as he described witnessing abuse, from the time he was a child until shortly before his father's death.

Prosecutors sought to show that on the day of the shooting -- Feb. 18, 2008 -- Sheehan was not fearful for her life. She proofed her son's school paper, drank coffee and made travel arrangements for a trip to Florida.

She testified that she didn't want to go with him on vacation but was pretending to out of fear because he had said he'd kill her if she didn't come. She said the fight touched off the fatal argument.