Murder charge dismissed for SLO woman who shot husband in the head in apparent accident
A woman who shot and killed her husband at point-blank range had the murder charge against her dismissed Thursday after a San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge sided with an earlier judge’s opinion that the death was unintentional.
Skylar Marie Marshall, 24, told investigators that she thought the gun was unloaded.
The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office has the option of refiling the murder charge one more time, her attorney says, and could appeal the decision should the charge be tossed once more.
A spokesman for the agency could not immediately be reached for comment Friday morning.
Details about the case were revealed for the first time in court during a preliminary hearing in April when investigators testified that the July 16, 2020, killing of Alexander Hagist occurred after he and his wife, Marshall, were “messing around” with a newly bought pistol on a living room couch after Hagist retrieved it from a bedroom.
Marshall told investigators that she — believing the firearm to be unloaded — put the barrel of the gun to Hagist’s forehead, and when he stared back at her without any reaction, she pulled the trigger.
Marshall had been held in San Luis Obispo County Jail since her arrest; she was released from jail Thursday.
Her attorney, William Gamble, told a Superior Court judge in April that she is willing to plead guilty to a felony charge of involuntary manslaughter, a charge that would carry a sentence of no more than four years.
That offer stands, he said Friday.
“She realizes that what she did was wrong and is willing to own up to it,” Gamble said, adding that in his 52-year legal career he’s never seen a case that better fits the definition of involuntary manslaughter.
“It was an accident,” the attorney said.
As of Friday morning, no new criminal complaint had been filed and Marshall had no criminal case pending in San Luis Obispo Superior Court.
Couple was ‘messing around’ with handgun
Few facts surrounding Hagist’s killing had been made public prior to the April 29 preliminary hearing.
The San Luis Obispo Police Department arrested Marshall after officers were called around 9:10 p.m. July 16 to the Peachwood Complex on the 600 block of Chorro Street.
Reporting parties described a gunshot and a woman screaming, and responding officers and fire personnel located a man with a gunshot wound to the forehead.
Hagist, 35, who had been married to Marshall for roughly a year at the time, succumbed to his injuries at the scene.
At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, Superior Court Judge Jesse Marino called it “an incredible stretch” for prosecutors to charge Marshall with murder, which requires malice aforethought, or intent.
After hearing testimony from four San Luis Obispo detectives, Marino said that while Marshall’s actions were obviously reckless, evidence presented showed that Marshall had a reasonable expectation that the gun was not loaded when she pointed it at Hagist and pulled the trigger.
Hagist was the one who retrieved the weapon, and testimony revealed that the two had a history of toying with the gun, which Hagist usually unloaded before taking out of a bedroom drawer.
Marshall told a police sergeant that Hagist would manipulate the weapon, put it down and then manipulate it again — what the officer described on the stand as “messing around.”
That was common in the weeks since the purchase of the gun, Marshall reportedly told the officer, and both Hagist and Marshall would sometimes jokingly point the gun at each other.
Marshall admitted to the investigator that the couple had a slight disagreement while Hagist had the gun out, and Marshall picked it up and pointed it at his forehead.
Marshall was expecting a reaction from her husband, she reportedly told the detective, and when he stared blankly back at her, she assumed the gun was unloaded and pulled the trigger to emphasize her feelings about their disagreement.
Marshall told investigators that she and Hagist made eye contact before the fatal shot.
Investigators testified that Marshall was inconsolable and hyperventilating following the shooting.
Deputy District Attorney Jon Kawashima argued in court in April that Marshall had to know the act was dangerous to human life, and deliberately acted with conscious disregard for human life.
Kawashima said that since Marshall admitted to detectives that she “wasn’t 100% sure” the gun was empty, she “disregarded the risks by pulling the trigger.”
Marino, however, said the crux of the case is whether Marshall’s actual firing of the firearm — as opposed to the pulling of the trigger of an empty gun — was intentional.
Calling it a “very difficult case,” Marino noted that Hagist is alleged to have brought out the gun, and that Hagist’s reaction to having the weapon pointed at his head was indifference, which would give Marshall a reasonable expectation the gun was unloaded.
“I believe evidence today shows that she did not know the gun was loaded — but she was reckless,” Marino said.
Second judge agrees to dismiss murder charge
After Marino ruled that, in order to proceed in the case, prosecutors needed to refile it as an involuntary manslaughter, the District Attorney’s Office again filed a complaint for murder. The charge carried sentencing enhancements for the use of a firearm, which would add several years to a potential sentence.
On July 12, Gamble filed a motion to dismiss the case based on the argument that evidence presented by the prosecution was insufficient to prove a murder occurred.
In its opposition filing July 29, the District Attorney’s Office argued that Marino’s dismissal of the murder charge was not based on a factual finding.
“Although the court did find that the defendant did not believe the firearm was loaded, that finding in and of itself is not controlling as to whether the defendant acted with malice,” Kawashima wrote in the filing.
“(When) someone points a firearm at someone’s head at close range and pulls the trigger without knowing 100% if it is unloaded, they know there is a high risk that pulling the trigger could result in death,” he wrote. “If that person nonetheless pulls the trigger, then they have done so with malice.”
On Thursday, Superior Court Judge Michael Duffy heard verbal arguments and granted the defense’s motion to dismiss the charge. Because the prosecution’s complaint only contained the single murder charge and not a lower manslaughter charge as well, the case was dismissed.
Gamble said he expects the District Attorney’s Office will refile the case as an involuntary manslaughter charge, which Gamble said his client would plead guilty to — if prosecutors do not file a sentencing enhancement along with it. If they do, Gamble said he is prepared to take the potential case to trial.
Gamble said the sentencing structure for an involuntary manslaughter conviction is a lower base of two years, a mid term of three years or an upper term of four years in County Jail. He said his client is amenable to the middle term.
However, prosecutors are within their authority to refile a single murder charge — which carries a sentence of 15 years to life for second-degree murder — one more time, Gamble said. If that’s dismissed again, the agency could appeal that ruling to state appellate court.
