By RICK BROWN News Tribune

Stephanie Burns' lawyers say she acted in self-defense when she shot her ex-husband to death m 1996.

The Jefferson City woman’s second-degree murder trial began this morning in Cole County Circuit Court.

Ms. Burns, 35, is accused of firing the gun that killed Troy C. Burns, 41, at his St. Thomas home on Dec. 18, 1996. She pleaded innocent and has been free on $25,000 bond.

The defense is using battered spouse syndrome as an explanation of the defendant’s state of mind to bolster the claim that she was defending herself when Burns lunged at her during an argument.

He had a history of harassing, stalking and threatening her since before they divorced in 1983, the defense claimed in its opening statement.

The prosecution hopes to convince Circuit Judge Thomas J. Brown III that the Burns case does not qualify as battered spouse syndrome because there was no history of physical abuse to the defendant.

"The battered spouse syndrome is a self-defense claim made by defendants who are victims of pattern violence ‘from their partners," according to an article in the October-November 1991 issue of the Journal of the Missouri Bar.

"These defendants feel threatened by their partner due to the repeated abuse and ultimately respond by killing their attackers."

The claim’s admissibility in Missouri was set out in a state law enacted in 1987.

Brown will decide the verdict at the end of the trial, which was set to continue this afternoon. The defense waived its right to a jury.

During this morning's proceedings, the judge viewed a videotaped interview of Ms. Burns conducted by Sheriff John Hemeyer on the night of the shooting.

She told the sheriff that Troy Burns once confronted her while she was sleeping at her parents’ home,

"He broke into the house and I wound up with a pistol in my mouth," she said. "He took my baby out of the crib."

"I said, ‘I am begging you to give my child back. Troy, don’t take her please.’ He gave her back, but why do all that?" she tearfully told the sheriff.

That was just one of a series of incidents in which Burns terrorized his ex-wife over a number of years, she says.

The couple were married in 1981 but divorced two years later. Ms. Burns said he threatened her during the divorce process.

"He told me he was going to car bomb me and kill (my attorney) if I didn’t stop asking for the things I was asking for, which was half the house and the washer and dryer, which I paid for," she said in the interview.

On the night of the shooting, Ms. Burns said she went to her ex-husband's house carrying a gun that he had previously obtained for her to use for self-defense. She said she wanted him to stop threatening to kill her when he talked to their two children.

She said the shooting followed an argument concerning her romantic relationship with another man. Burns was shot three times. His body was found in the living room of his residence.

Following the shooting, she called 911 and waited for deputies to arrive.

For a number of reasons, Ms. Burns’ case does not fit the criteria of battered spouse syndrome established in previous trials, according to Bill Tackett, assistant prosecuting attorney.

"A search of all of the cases in the nation where the battered spouse syndrome was allowed as a defense rendered none that involved a man and a woman who lived apart for an extended period of time as in the (Burns) case where the ex-husband arid ex-wife had lived apart for seven years," Tackett wrote in a pretrial brief.

"The victim was not killed during or immediately after he beat the defendant" as is common in battered spouse cases, he wrote.

He also said Ms. Burns voluntarily Went to the victim’s house for a meeting she requested, brought a loaded gun to the house and shot the unarmed victim in the back of the head.