Judge Joan Weber declined to dismiss a murder charge against a woman accused of stabbing her Navy doctor husband to death in his bed in December, 2010.
Prosecutors argue Jennifer Trayers' planned the murder, after learning of her husband's extra-marital affair with a fellow Navy doctor.
The prosecution finished its initial presentation of witnesses this afternoon, at which time Trayer's attorney asked the judge to dismiss count one of the complaint.
Attorney Kerry Armstrong said there is insufficient evidence of "premeditation and deliberation" and that the killing was, if anything, an act of "uncontrollable rage," or manslaughter.
But the defense argued that Jennifer Trayers wrote at least one letter before she killed her husband, Fred Trayers. In the letter, she revealed she knew he was having an affair, and that the jury could find that she planned to kill him.
The prosecutor also said that the evidence shows that Jennifer Trayers had "plenty of time" to plan the murder.
The judge sided with the prosecution, ruling that the jury should decide on the murder charge.
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Trayers says she became suspicious that her husband was cheating on her in late 2002, eight years before she allegedly stabbed him to death.
She testified that Fred Trayers was ignoring her and sending emails and instant messages, and talking on the phone, with a woman he had met at his work.
She was also having an affair with a man with whom she worked.
In late 2007 Trayers said she saw an email her husband wrote to the woman he had earlier had an affair with. It included the word "passionate".
She said she was hurt by that and considered leaving him, but stayed with him and their relationship remained good. She said she never had another affair.
Until August, 2010, she said the relationship remained "good". But by September 2010, she became suspicious that he was having another affair, with a woman he met on the hospital ship. She said her mental state changed, she was anxious and had trouble sleeping and was losing weight.
In addition to her testimony, defense attorneys discussed Trayers medical state on the night of Dec. 6, 2010. She required surgery and additional blood when she was brought to the hospital that night.
However, her wounds didn’t go inside the body and could be compared to paper cuts a forensic pathologist testified in a downtown courtroom Monday.
Defense attorneys say their client never planned to kill her husband and was trying to kill herself.
Forensic pathologist Christina Stanley testified that when she examined Jennifer Trayers in the hospital, there were marks on her neck, wrists and over her heart but many of them appeared more like scratches than stab wounds.
Michael Sise, M.D., a vascular surgeon with Scripps Health, also testified Jennifer Trayers' wounds were superficial. Sise said he operated on the defendant and found one laceration in an abdomen muscle. He also placed a chest tube on the right side of her chest because of a collapsed lung.
