A spurned husband was sentenced to life in prison Thursday after a jury convicted him of murdering his wife after learning of her adulterous affair.
That Phillip Chad Dunn, 29, of Braselton, stabbed his estranged wife to death on Valentine's Day 2010 was never in question during the trial. However, defense attorney Wystan Getz asked a Gwinnett County jury to find Dunn guilty of the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter, which carries a penalty of 20 years in prison, because he said he committed the crime in the heat of passion.
Assistant District Attorney Christa Kirk thought otherwise, asking jurors to find Dunn guilty of malice murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence.
The jury returned a verdict after deliberating for two hours. Dunn's life sentenc includes 24 months on probation, consecutive to a 20-year sentence he previously received for choking his wife two weeks prior to the murder.
Dunn also was convicted of aggravated assault and two counts of third-degree cruelty to children for slaying Shelley Dunn at a Walmart in Suwanee in front of their two daughters, who were then 6 and 8 years old.
The victim's relatives embraced and wept upon hearing the verdict. Shelley Dunn's stepmother, Reda Allen, said she didn't believe Dunn was truly remorseful and asked Superior Court Judge Warren Davis to punish Dunn to the fullest extent of the law.
"Please consider what Chad has stolen from Shelley's family and most importantly from her children, Cheyenne and Zoe," Allen said. "Cheyenne still cries every night for Mommy."
Dunn told the judge it was the girls he was thinking about when he proceeded with the trial, rather than plead guilty.
"I did not bring this to trial to beat it," Dunn said. "I was just hoping that maybe one day that I would be able to get out to be with my girls."
Zoe, 7, and Cheyenne, 9, testified about witnessing the attack Wednesday while clutching teddy bears.
Zoe doodled with crayons as she told jurors, "He hurt her ... with a knife."
Dunn testified Thursday morning that his wife had confessed to having feelings for a male co-worker in 2009, but reassured him that she wanted to repair their marriage. The couple worked together at facility that manufactured aerosol products.
Then about two weeks before the slaying, she reiterated her infatuation with the co-worker during a quiet evening at their Braselton home. Dunn said he "flipped out and choked her." He was arrested and held in the Barrow County jail for 10 days. He later pleaded guilty Feb. 7 to charges of aggravated assault and aggravated battery.
When he got out of jail on bond, Dunn said he returned to find his wife and children had moved out. Shelley Dunn nevertheless agreed to let Dunn keep the girls overnight on Feb. 13, 2010.
Dunn was having breakfast and watching cartoons with his daughters the next morning when he received a hang-up phone call from a number he didn't recognize. Within minutes there was another hang-up call, this time from a number he recognized as Travis Wayne Crumley's, the male co-worker his wife was involved with.
Dunn called back and heard Crumley's voice in the background.
"I hung up the phone and I said in front of my daughters that, ‘Your mother had killed me inside and I'm going to kill her on the inside,'" Dunn testified.
Prosecutors said Dunn confronted his wife at the Walmart, stabbed her with a kitchen knife at least three times and then stabbed himself.
Dunn testified he blacked out upon leaving to drop off the girls and remembered nothing until he was getting into an ambulance.
Prosecutors said his intent was clear.
"He wanted to confront her and he wanted to murder her because she left him," Kirk said.
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