Hearing begins in local shooting case

Elmore County Magistrate Judge David Epis took the testimony he heard Friday in the Lindstrom preliminary hearing under advisement and promised to issue a decision on Nov. 6.

Matthew Lindstrom, 29, has been charged with aggravated battery for allegedly shooting his wife in the chest during an argument between the couple at their home on Rock Road the night of Sept. 14-15.

Friday's preliminary hearing was to determine if there was sufficient "probable cause" evidence to justify binding Lindstrom over to trial in district court.

But following a full afternoon of testimony, most of it from Lindstrom's 34-year-old wife, Sara, Judge Epis took the relatively unusual step of deciding he needed more time to think about what he'd heard before deciding if the matter should go to district court.

"This is a unique case," Epis said. "The evidence is less than consistent. There are serious charges with serious consequences on both sides. The court wants to think about it."

Sara Lindstrom, who appeared frightened, anxious and often unsure of herself, was questioned by both Elmore County Prosecuting Attorney Christina Schindele and Lindstrom's private attorney, Mark Manweiler. She spoke her answers quietly and at times seemed to be on the edge of tears.

She admitted that her memory of many of the events of the evening that led up to her being shot were poor or non-existent.

The evening, she said, had begun with a homecoming party for her husband, who had been deployed overseas, attended by a half a dozen friends who also had been deployed and their wives. She had "too much" to drink, she said, describing her consumption as 4-6 beers and 2-3 shots of legally purchased moonshine.

Although she said she couldn't remember what started the argument later that night between her and her husband, she took the blame for starting it. When asked why, she replied "it seems likely."

Sara explained that she had suffered from a variety of mental health issues through most of her life, from anxiety and depression to PTSD (from events in her childhood) to agoraphobia, and that she had "rage and anger issues."

She said that she had been institutionalized on several occasions and "there hasn't been a day go by" in her life since age 12 that she hasn't considered suicide, she said.

Under questioning from Manweiler, she said she did not remember hitting or biting her husband, which Manweiler implied was the reason his client had gotten the couple's handgun, a Springfield XD .45 caliber semi-automatic -- to protect himself.

Sara said she had little or no memory of any of the events of the evening until just before the shooting. She came out of the bathroom where she had been crying, she said, and remembered seeing her husband in the hallway with the gun at his side.

They argued and he began "talking with his hands," waving them with the gun in it.

She said he said something like "if you don't get your crazy head fixed" they were going to divorce. At another point in the argument, she said she told him, "if you're going to kill me, go ahead and shoot."

A matter of seconds after that, she was lying on the hallway floor with a gunshot wound to her chest.

But how that came to happen was not clear.

Under questioning from Schindele and cross examination from Manweiler she originally said she struck at the weapon and it discharged.

Then, she indicated her finger may have gone inside the trigger guard. Then she said she may have been the person who actually pushed the trigger.

Looking tired and slightly confused, she said she wasn't completely sure what happened.

Officer Elwood Robertson of the Mountain Home Police Department, who had responded to the 911 call from Matthew, during which he told dispatchers his wife had been shot, was questioned at length about the type of safety features on the handgun. The weapon uses both a standard safety switch and a grip safety.

Manweiler attempted to show that it was possible for the safeties to be defeated relatively easily and that Sara's actions actually caused the gun to discharge.

Schindele contended that it was Matthew that had gone and gotten the gun, had cycled a round into the chamber and disengaged the safeties, making him culpable for the eventual discharge of the weapon, whether he did it himself or in conjunction with his wife's actions.

Manweiler brought up conflicts in the statements Sara had made to police officers who interviewed her at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, where she had been taken that evening, and when she was interviewed by those officers again several days later.

Most had to do with her involvement in how the weapon discharged. Both she and Schindele tried to explain that any conflicts were due to the initial trauma of the shooting, as opposed to later when she had begun to recover.

At one point during her recovery, Sara said, she spent four days at her request in the mental ward at the hospital.

After conferring with both attorneys in chambers, Epis announced his decision to delay a ruling until 4 p.m. on Nov. 6.

The judge also agreed to a request from Sara that the no-contact order for her husband be modified so that the couple could undergo marriage counseling.

If Lindstrom were to face trial in district court and be convicted on the aggravated battery charge he could receive up to 15 years in prison.

He is a staff sergeant with the 366th Logistics Readiness Squadron at Mountain Home Air Force Base.

The couple moved to Mountain Home from Alaska in January.