THE MURDER TRIAL IN STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK, of Janet Mercereau completed its third week of testimony Friday. Janet is accused of killing her husband, FDNY Fire Marshal Douglas Mercereau on December 2, 2007, by shooting him in the head as he was sleeping. (See previous update which also has links to earlier reports HERE.)
The Staten Island Advance has been covering the trial and they are reporting (HERE) that on Thursday the Mercereau’s next-door neighbor testified for 90 minutes about Janet’s panicky phone call to her in the morning and subsequent visit to her house while the police and EMS were working the scene.
Next, the district attorney read into the record a police report that she had filed in April, 2006, 20 months before the murder, where she had accused Douglas of domestic abuse.
“For nearly two weeks, my husband Doug has been exhibiting verbal and physical insults to me for no reason,” Janet Redmond-Mercereau wrote in the statement, which alleges in detail several instances of physical and emotional abuse.
He told me he ‘was sick of living with someone who has a futile attitude toward her obesity,’ ” she said of one incident.
In once instance, she claimed her husband threw a queen-sized comforter at her feet because he did not like the way it was folded. In another, he allegedly charged and slammed his body into her, knocking her a few feet back, when he became enraged over her selection of Easter presents for their children.
“I became nervous at his irrational and scary behavior,” she said in the statement.
It appears that the D. A. is beginning to establish a motive for pre-meditated conduct on her part.
NYPD property clerk Sgt. Donato DePaolo testified that Mercereau surrendered three guns — a Smith & Wesson 38-caliber handgun, a 22-caliber Ruger, and his Smith & Wesson 9mm service weapon that was used in his slaying — along with two magazines and several live rounds when he was slapped with the order of protection from his wife.
DePaolo told jurors police and firefighters must surrender their weapons in the event of a restraining order.
In Friday’s testimony, the jury heard that Janet was eligible to receive about $800,000 in lump-sum insurance benefits along with the ownership of their house valued at $522,000. The Staten Island Advance continues:
Al Connelly of the FDNY Pension Fund said Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau was listed as the beneficiary on her husband’s pension plan, which totaled $397,357.96 when Mercereau was killed.
George Belnavis, a representative with the FDNY Fire Officers Association, told jurors that Mercereau’s fire union life insurance policy has a value of $350,000, with Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau as the beneficiary.
John Hancock Life Insurance claims consultant Leanne Mahoney testified that Mercereau’s policy with the company was worth $15,510 when he died, plus an additional $10,000 in accidental death benefits.
The defense then tried to point out that Janet would have been better off financially in the long run if her husband had remained alive.
Prosecutors maintained that in addition to an alleged financial motive, Mrs. Mercereau murdered her husband because she was fed up with his continuous taunts over her weight and her housekeeping.
The trial resumes on Monday.
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