DEFENDANT: SLAIN WIFE THREATENED FAMILY: PETALUMA CONTRACTOR ADMITS KILLING WIFE AFTER CLASHES OVER AFFAIR

A Petaluma contractor who admitted he shot and killed his wife after months of fighting over her affair with another man testified Tuesday that she aimed the gun at him the night she died and threatened him and their two daughters, saying, "I'm going to kill you all."

Kenneth Mullennix said he was very drunk and doesn't know exactly what happened in the next few moments but suddenly saw Buapha Mullennix, 37, "lying there, dead, in a pool of blood."

He said he was confused and in shock when he called 911 and relayed what had happened, telling an emergency dispatcher his wife "attacked me" and was "insane," according to a replay of the tape in court.

"I shot her, and I killed her," he told the 911 operator, his voice cracking and dissolving into audible sobs during the call.

But it wasn't until much later, Mullennix testified, when seeing a videotaped interview with the couple's daughter, then 10, triggered his memory of his wife holding the gun -- a recollection at odds with multiple recorded statements to police in which he said she had no weapon and nothing in her hands that he could remember.

Taking the witness stand this week for the first time in his own defense, Mullennix said he does not know how the Glock semiautomatic pistol he had hidden in a bookshelf ended up in his wife's possession.

He said he has no recall of shooting his wife or at what point he took control of the gun -- perhaps firing it as he tried to wrestle it from her.

"I must have shot her. I am not trying to deny that," he said. "I was the only other one in the room."

Mullennix, 51, is on trial for first-degree murder in his wife's Jan. 9, 2010 death. He also is charged with a gun enhancement and could face 50 years to life in prison if convicted.

Mullennix met his Thai-born wife while supervising some construction in Thailand and previously was married to a Filipino woman whom he divorced because she "was having affairs with several different men," he testified.

Mullennix said Buapha Mullennix had always "had a very violent temper," and had come at him with knives and bottles even before their marriage, punching him in the face several times as well. But he rejected prosecutors' assertion that he only married her because she was pregnant, and said even at the end "he loved her very much."

But prosecutors have portrayed a man so obsessed with his second wife's affair that he purchased a GPS tracking device for her car to keep tabs on her once her lover gave her a second cellphone and he no longer could check on her by phone.

Under cross-examination by Deputy District Attorney Craig Brooks, Mullennix conceded that the night before his wife's death was the first time he had used the device to prove that she had spent the night with her boyfriend -- though Mullennix said she routinely did so and it made him no angrier than usual.

He said he and his wife had slept separately for six or seven months and he already had decided to divorce her after an October 2009 incident. In that incident, the couple argued over the boyfriend and she grabbed a concrete grinding bowl, hitting him in the chest with it, according to his court testimony.

Mullennix said he told his wife he was going to call police. She said they would not believe him because "the woman is always right," he testified.

Then he told her he would seek a divorce and take custody of their 10-year-old daughter, and she said, "If you divorce me, I will kill everyone in this house."

But he said he proceeded with plans for a divorce, even contemplating a restraining order to protect himself and the kids.

"I was scared," he testified. "Bua was dangerous."

On Jan 9, 2010, when she came home to their McNeil Avenue house after spending the day and night with the other man, Mullennix said he retreated to his bedroom, as usual, hoping to avoid a fight.

The couple's younger daughter had been reading him a story when her mother came in and shooed her out. He said Buapha Mullennix then chastised him, saying, "She love you. She always follow you. My daughter, she follow you, too."

She then cursed him in her native tongue and suddenly produced the Glock pistol, and said she was going to "kill you all," Mullennix said.

Moments later, she was dead.

You can reach Staff Writer

Mary Callahan at 521-5288 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com.