JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Jacksonville woman accused of killing her girlfriend and leaving the body on the front porch of their home for nearly a week was in court Friday, asking for her case to be thrown out.
Lawyers for Shannon McCarthy filed a motion saying her case falls under Florida's Stand Your Ground law.
McCarthy's lawyer argued that she and her then-girlfriend Heather Sheppard got into a physical altercation that resulted in Sheppard standing over her with a shotgun. They say that's when McCarthy shot a handgun four times, killing Sheppard.
The state called six witnesses in the hearing to support its argument that Sheppard was killed by a violent act, and not in a moment while McCarthy was defending herself as stated in her Stand Your Ground motion.
Part of the state's argument centered around testimony from Sheppard's friend and business partner Jeffrey McCreedy, who said he went to the home on Colonial Avenue multiple times at the end of June 2023 to speak with Sheppard. He said McCarthy continually changed her story as to why Sheppard couldn't talk, stating Sheppard with sick or ran away with her sister.
Detectives with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office testified that Sheppard's body was decomposing on the front porch of the home for nearly one week while her family filed a missing person's report.
The state questioned McCarthy's Stand Your Ground motion, saying McCarthy never called police after the shooting, adding that she changed her story about her knowledge of Sheppard's whereabouts and is accused of trying to clean the home of any blood related to the shooting. The state also brought up threatening text messages that McCarthy sent Sheppard after a domestic violence incident earlier that year.
"It's pretty vivid, of her saying 'I'm going to kill you and I'm going to have you smell death,'" said prosecutor Joseph Licando.
The state said five months after that text was sent, Sheppard's body was found on the front porch of her home. But the defense said that the location of the bullets found in Sheppard's body show that McCarthy fired a gun in self defense.
"What does that tell you, why is that trajectory important? Because she said in the motion and they stipulated, that it creates connotation in the case that she was on the ground when she did the shooting and a shotgun being pointed down at her," said defense attorney Charles Fletcher.
An examiner with JSO said Sheppard's fingerprints were not found on the shotgun that police found in the home. Sheppard's daughter testified that her mother did not own a gun.
Judge Meredith Charbula said she will render a ruling on the defense's Stand Your Ground motion before the next pre-trial hearing on September 17.