Case moves to the jury

The fate of a rural Portland woman charged with murder is now in the hands of the jury.

Prosecutors and the defense rested their case and presented closing arguments this morning during 20-year-old Portland resident Shelby N. Hiestand’s trial in Jay Circuit Court for the Jan. 12, 2020, murder of 31-year-old Shea Briar.

The defense offered no evidence or witnesses.

Two Level 5 felony charges, reckless homicide and involuntary manslaughter, were added as alternative charges for jurors to consider.

Hiestand’s trial is the second in Jay Circuit Court for Briar’s murder. Esther J. Stephen, the mother of Briar’s child, was sentenced in May to 55 years in prison after a Jay Circuit Court jury found her guilty. Another woman, 19-year-old Hannah Knapke, will stand trial Nov. 15. The prosecution alleges that there was a plot to kill Briar, with the women driving him to northern Jay County and Stephen distracting him to allow Hiestand to retrieve a gun and shoot him in the back.

John Quirk, Hiestand’s attorney, argued in his closing statement there was no plan to commit murder and that Briar’s death was an accident. He also said it would have been impossible to line up a gunshot in the dark.

He reminded jurors they have to believe without reasonable doubt Hiestand knowingly or intentionally killed Briar.

“That’s the part I say they didn’t prove,” he said.

Quirk referenced her admissions of guilt in the interrogation recording played Monday. He said Jay County Sheriff’s Office chief deputy Patrick Wells, who interrogated Hiestand, was the person assuming Hiestand and Stephen had a plan.

Quirk also referenced information from a testimony given Tuesday from Jeremy Brice of the Indiana State Police intelligence and technology unit. Brice said there were no obvious indicators of the crime solicited from Hiestand’s cell phone search engines or calls. He also mentioned a text message –– “Nope, I’m killing that bastard with my own two hands” –– sent by Hiestand to Stephen that was referenced by the prosecution. He said it was taken out of context.

“You talk about fishing, that’s like (fishing) for a week and not catching a thing,” he said.

Jay County chief deputy prosecutor Zech Landers argued in his closing statement that Hiestand wanted to kill Briar and made plans with Stephen to do so. He referenced the text message. Hiestand, he said, followed through with it.

“She shot Shea Briar in the back, and she did so intentionally,” Landers said. “She decides to drive to Shea’s, she decides to go to that bridge, she decides to get the gun out and she decides to shoot him.”

After a day and a half of evidence and witnesses presented by the prosecution, this morning’s proceedings moved along quickly. The prosecution rested its case shortly after court opened at 9 a.m. today. The defense did not present any witnesses or evidence. Closing arguments began following a break and were completed before 11 a.m.

The prosecution had called 11 witnesses to the stand Tuesday, including several from Indiana State Police.

Jeremy Brice of the state police intelligence and technology unit testified he extracted 130,000 text messages between Hiestand and Stephen and provided them to the case investigator. Upon that testimony, Hiestand’s attorney, John Quirk, asked that jurors leave the room and then told the judge Tuesday was the first time he had seen the text conversations. He asked that they be excluded. Hutchison denied the request and told Quirk he was welcome to cross-examine Brice.

Landers then presented documents to jurors of the texts between Hiestand and Stephen.

Quirk questioned Brice, mentioning he doesn’t know the context of the texts. Brice said he wasn’t looking for content but rather for texts through certain dates around the time of the murder. Another investigator reviewed the texts, he said.

Kristi Sibray, a rural Jay County resident, testified to conversations she had with Hiestand and Stephen. She said the pair revealed plans to put crushed pills in Briar’s drink or to hire a hitman.

“I told them they could never get by with it,” said Sibray, who also testified during Stephen’s trial. “If you go through a divorce, you might think ill things of the other person … I didn’t think they were serious.”

She also said Hiestand had said she would shoot Briar. During most of their conversations, Sibray noted, Hiestand remained quiet and simply nodded her head to Stephen’s remarks.

Sibray added that she babysat Stephen’s daughter for the first time on the night of Jan. 11, 2020. She said Stephen dropped off her daughter around 10 p.m. and picked her up in the early hours of Jan. 12, 2020, returning with muddy boots and refusing to tell Sibray where she had been.

James Stevens, a crime scene investigator with the state police, said there were two metal fragments found in Briar’s body. These fragments, as it was later discussed, were pieces of a bullet.

Stacey Hartman, a lab manager and forensic scientist in the ISP’s Fort Wayne Regional Laboratory’s forensic firearms identification unit, explained to jurors how bullets can fragment upon impact. The larger fragment found in Briar’s heart appeared to be a 0.22-caliber bullet, she said, although she said there was not enough evidence to tie the fragmented bullet to Hiestand’s gun.

Forensic pathologic Dr. Scott Wagner shared details from Briar’s autopsy. According to his report, Briar died of a gunshot wound to the back, with the bullet puncturing his aorta and passing through three chambers of his heart.

“(It) seems to be a smaller caliber wound, but it was well-placed,” Wagner said, noting that kind of gunshot would cause internal bleeding.

Jay County prosecutor Wes Schemenaur had earlier played a video from the vehicle of the Geneva reserve police officer who first responded to the bridge where Briar was found. Upon the officer’s arrival, Briar appeared delirious, occasionally yelling incoherently and slipping in and out of consciousness.

Quirk asked Wagner if it would have been possible for Briar to live following such a gunshot wound.

“It’s possible, but very unlikely,” Wagner said.

If Briar had received treatment within five or 10 minutes of the shot, he may have had a 1% chance of living, Wagner added. After that, he continued, his chances decreased well below 1%. Damage to the brain and other complications would have resulted as well.

State police crime scene supervisor John Petro said he obtained a search warrant for Hiestand’s home and found a 0.22-caliber rifle and gun magazine in her bedroom.

He said he didn’t find any valuable evidence at the crime scene and noted because of the rain, indicators such as blood stains could have been washed away. He and other investigators were unable to locate Briar’s phone.

A crowd of about 30 attended the proceedings Tuesday, with a section filled by several members of Briar’s family. During the recording of Briar, some of his family held their head down, plugged their ears or wiped their eyes.

Around 3 p.m. Tuesday, Hutchison adjourned for the day with a remark he expects the trial to be done by the end of today.

In Indiana, murder carries a sentence of 45 to 65 years, with an advisory sentence of 55 years.