CALGARY- A former teacher accused of shooting her husband says she didn’t think a gun was loaded when her husband of five years asked her to shoot him.
A trial began Tuesday for Heather Wilson Duncan on a charge of second-degree murder. Her 68-year-old husband, Barry Duncan, was shot in the head at the couple’s rural home northwest of Calgary on December 10th, 2012.
Court heard the couple had been been involved in an alcohol-fueled fight when Barry Duncan entered the room with a gun, and told his wife if she was so angry with him, to shoot him.
Heather Duncan wept as an audio tape of the frantic 911 call she made after her husband was killed was played in court.
On the recording, she says:
“I think I killed my husband… He gave me the gun- we were fighting- and he said it was loaded. I didn’t know he meant it.
“The weapon went off and I think he’s dead. Please come, please come, please come; send an ambulance.”
Defence lawyer Jim Butlin argues that while Duncan may have pulled the trigger, that doesn’t mean she is guilty as charged.
“That might mean that she was involved involuntarily or whatever,” says Butlin. “But that doesn’t mean she was, shall we say, using the laymen’s term, guilty.”
The defence plans to call expert testimony to prove the shooting was accidental.
The trial before a jury is expected to last three weeks.
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