Domestic abuse at core of Healdsburg slaying trial

<p>The killing of Daniel Mooney was “not a whodunit” but rather “a what-is-it,” a Sonoma County prosecutor told jurors Thursday as he outlined his case against a Windsor woman who, both sides agree, fatally stabbed her boyfriend in the midst of a stormy romance.</p><p>But the prosecution and defense are in wholly different camps when it comes to the source of the violence on Dec. 14, 2008. Deputy District Attorney Bob Waner said in opening statements that Sheyna Douprea's killing of Healdsburg resident Daniel Mooney reflected a history of violence against intimate partners while her attorney said it was Douprea who had been victimized and had killed her 46-year-old boyfriend in self-defense.</p><p>Douprea, 25, had committed at least three violent assaults on others before she repeatedly stabbed Healdsburg resident Daniel Mooney in the neck, causing him to bleed to death, Waner told jurors.</p><p>He said that Douprea has arrived at the apartment she shared part-time with Mooney expecting to attend his company Christmas party. She flew into a rage when she found him highly intoxicated “and in no shape to go anywhere,” Waner said.</p><p>She went to her bedroom, got a knife and violently assaulted him, resulting in his death, the prosecutor said. Mooney had four stab wounds in his neck, two large ones evident on photographs taken at the hospital and shown in court Thursday. Another photograph showed Mooney in his undershorts, on the floor clutching a blood-soaked towel in one limp hand.</p><p>Though still alive and breathing shallowly when police arrived, he was unconscious and bleeding profusely, police officers testified.</p><p>Paramedics and, later, emergency room personnel at Healdsburg General Hospital were unable to save him.</p><p>“The evidence will show this was murder,” Waner said. “The evidence will show this was done with no lawful excuse.”</p><p>Douprea's attorney, Jamie Thistlethwaite, cited Mooney's 0.35 blood-alcohol level and said it was he who was the violent aggressor.</p><p>Addressing the jury of eight women and four men, she said Mooney tried to strangle his girlfriend, the mother of a then 2-year-old girl, and might have succeeded in killing her had she not armed herself with a knife to protect herself.</p><p>Thistlethwaite promised that experts would explain to jurors the complicated psychology behind what she said was her client's failure to report previous incidents of domestic violence and her initial decision to lie to police about coming home and finding Mooney dying.</p><p>Douprea later said she stabbed Mooney because she thought she was going to die and suggested she would have been covered in blood when police arrived had she not first taken a shower, though officers noticed blood in one of her nostrils, according to their testimony.</p><p>Thistlethwaite also said she would present witnesses who would testify that Douprea locked herself in the bathroom in the midst of the fight and used her cell phone to tell others what was transpiring.</p><p>“This case is a tragedy,” she said.</p><p>Waner did not immediately introduced the details of court records showing that Douprea, who was on probation, had two domestic violence convictions at the time of Mooney's death. Mooney, who was on parole, had obtained a temporary restraining order against her four months earlier, citing violent, obsessive behavior.</p><p>Talk of her violent nature contrasted sharply with Douprea's demeanor Thursday in court, where she wept several times at the display of graphic photographs and also an exterior image of Mooney's apartment building.</p><p>Retired Healdsburg Police Officer Joseph Lozinto, one of the first officers to arrive at the stabbing scene, described encountering a young woman who, while handcuffed, breathed heavily and appeared to be anxious and scared.</p><p>“She seemed concerned and anxious about the welfare of her boyfriend,” Lozinto said. She was “distraught.”</p><p>Testimony in the case is expected to last eight or nine days over the next two weeks.</p>