FARMINGTON — "He said he did it," a tearful Michael Hodson said on the witness stand Wednesday. "I said, 'Did what?' He said he had shot her."
Hodson, a friend of Roger Martin MacGuire, who is charged with killing his ex-wife and her unborn baby, wept as he described how a "shaken" MacGuire came to him Jan. 15 of this year and told Hodson he had shot Susan MacGuire only minutes earlier.
Like some other witnesses who testified at the preliminary hearing, Hodson said Roger MacGuire had said that he and his ex-wife were going to reconcile and that he lent her $1,000 so she could leave her boyfriend. "He was very excited," Hodson said.
Witnesses also said MacGuire said he was stunned to learn she was pregnant by her boyfriend and was engaged to marry that man.
Second District Judge Jon Memmott advanced MacGuire's case toward trial on two charges of aggravated murder in the deaths of Susan MacGuire and her 16-week-old fetus. If convicted, MacGuire could face the death penalty.
Later, Memmott also denied MacGuire's bid to be released on bail and monitored electronically.
Also on Wednesday, MacGuire waived his right to a preliminary hearing on two counts of violating a protection order, a class A misdemeanor.
Hodson accompanied MacGuire to the Riverdale Police Department where MacGuire turned himself in. Another witness, co-worker John Whetman, said MacGuire had earlier threatened to kill Susan MacGuire, but Whetman said he didn't believe those statements at first. Later, he became "very concerned" and called the Layton Police Department.
Susan MacGuire, the mother of six other children, died during emergency surgery. She had been hit with four gunshots, one to the back of the head, one to her left forearm and two to the abdomen, one of which went through the fetus, cut the umbilical cord in half and severed the placenta, according to Dr. Maureen Frikke, assistant medical examiner.
Layton police detective Joseph Morrison said Roger MacGuire told him during an interview after the shooting that he had bought a handgun and pepper spray to defend himself against his ex-wife's boyfriend.
Morrison said MacGuire told him that he just wanted to scare Susan MacGuire on Jan. 15, not shoot her. Morrison said MacGuire told him, "It just went off, it just shot," regarding the loaded semiautomatic handgun he brought into the insurance office where his ex-wife worked.
Some testimony painted an unflattering picture of Susan MacGuire, suggesting she liked "playing games," used people financially and sometimes lied.
That upset her friend, Brenda Welch, who defended Susan MacGuire outside the courtroom as a battered woman who "played games" simply to protect herself from an abusive ex-husband who was stalking her. "She was afraid of (MacGuire). She's being made out to be the bad guy," Welch said. "He deserves the harshest punishment possible."
Kirstie Terry, Susan MacGuire's 18-year-old daughter, dismissed as "ridiculous" the claim that MacGuire had lent her mother $1,000. Her mother briefly considered getting back with MacGuire but decided she wanted to be free of him, Terry said.
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