Tweet
Jury Rejects Battered Wife Defense
PONTIAC, Mich. (Dec. 14) - A jury rejected an elementary school teacher's claim of self-defense and convicted her of murder Tuesday for hacking her husband to death with a hatchet.
Nancy Seaman, 52, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.
The verdict came after two weeks of harrowing testimony, including graphic autopsy photos of Robert Seaman and Nancy Seaman's tearful claims that she was a battered wife who had been abused throughout her 31-year marriage and was defending herself during an attack by her husband.
Prosecutors said Seaman argued with her husband on Mother's Day, went to Home Depot to buy a hatchet, returned and killed him with it. Police found Robert Seaman's body in his wife's sport utility vehicle a few days later.
Nancy Seaman claimed that she bought the hatchet for yard work and that the couple got into an argument the next morning in which her husband menaced her with a steak knife. She said she grabbed the nearest thing to defend herself.
She took elaborate steps to cover up her crime, wrapping the body in a tarp and painting the walls and bleaching the floor of the garage where the killing took place. She also shoplifted another hatchet and returned it to Home Depot with her original receipt.
The defense argued that Seaman suffered from battered-woman syndrome, which led her to cover up past abuse and not seek help.
PONTIAC, Mich. (Dec. 14) - A jury rejected an elementary school teacher's claim of self-defense and convicted her of murder Tuesday for hacking her husband to death with a hatchet.
Nancy Seaman, 52, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.
The verdict came after two weeks of harrowing testimony, including graphic autopsy photos of Robert Seaman and Nancy Seaman's tearful claims that she was a battered wife who had been abused throughout her 31-year marriage and was defending herself during an attack by her husband.
Prosecutors said Seaman argued with her husband on Mother's Day, went to Home Depot to buy a hatchet, returned and killed him with it. Police found Robert Seaman's body in his wife's sport utility vehicle a few days later.
Nancy Seaman claimed that she bought the hatchet for yard work and that the couple got into an argument the next morning in which her husband menaced her with a steak knife. She said she grabbed the nearest thing to defend herself.
She took elaborate steps to cover up her crime, wrapping the body in a tarp and painting the walls and bleaching the floor of the garage where the killing took place. She also shoplifted another hatchet and returned it to Home Depot with her original receipt.
The defense argued that Seaman suffered from battered-woman syndrome, which led her to cover up past abuse and not seek help.