FILLMORE — Carole Elizabeth Alden will go to trial for shooting her husband to death one hot summer night last July.
The mother of five has admitted she did it — that she shot her drunken husband as he raised his hand to strike her in their trailer home four miles southeast of Delta.
Gruesome details of the case that startled quiet Millard County were revealed Monday as prosecutors laid out their evidence at the preliminary hearing before 4th District Court Judge Donald Eyre.
Martin Sessions was found dead in the back yard of the couple's residence next to an old fish pond that Alden apparently dug out to use as a grave.
"At the end of the day, this woman bought a gun and executed her husband," said Patrick Nolan, a Utah assistant attorney general.
After the daylong hearing, Eyre agreed there was enough evidence to make Alden stand trial for domestic violence murder, a first-degree felony, and also obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony, and desecration of a body, a third-degree felony.
The two-week trial is set to begin June 6.
During the hearing, Alden's attorney, James Slavens, also outlined his strategy for her defense that will rely on the so-called "battered spouse" syndrome.
Throughout the hearing, and often at the objection of prosecutors, Slavens worked in details about prior 911 emergency calls to the couple's home and a recording that may show Sessions threatening Alden if she should ever contact police.
There is no argument that Alden repeatedly told officers she was scared for her life the night of July 28.
One by one, Millard County Sheriff's Department officials relayed events and observations from that night.
Alden told investigators she and her husband had been "having a difficult time," but were supposed to do something together that day — but Sessions decided to go out drinking with his friends instead. Alden went out looking for her husband and eventually brought him home with the help of friends.
In a videotaped interview, she told Sgt. Morris Burton that Sessions was in a drunken rage when the couple got back home. The man had passed out on the floor for a time, but when he woke up, he began making threats, punching the wall, throwing things and tearing apart the bathroom and bedroom.
After going from room to room to hide from him, she finally turned out the lights in the kitchen of the trailer so her husband couldn't see her, Burton testified.
"Then she stepped into the laundry area to hide from him," he said.
Investigators believe she bought a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver that morning and had hidden a gun in the cabinet there, Burton said.
"She said Sessions heard her in there, saw her and when he raised his fist, she shot him," Burton said.
Sessions stumbled backward, then fell forward on his face. After waiting a few minutes, Alden said, she peeked out to see her husband on the floor. She couldn't tell if he was still breathing with the air conditioner blowing his shirt.
She wanted to call her daughter but had to get past Sessions to put a phone on the hook in the bedroom. By her own admission, she placed a pillow over his head, and shot him in the back of the head, Burton said.
"She said she did this so he couldn't grab her and take the gun away from her," he said.
Alden then apparently called her grown daughter, who lives in Fillmore. "It's over and I'm OK," Alden reportedly told her.
At some point during the evening and early morning hours, Alden dug out the old pond in the back yard, to use as a grave. Sessions was too big for her to drag out of the house, so she tied a tow rope around his waist and dragged him out of the trailer with her Jeep.
Alden called a friend in the morning and told him what she'd done. That person told her to call police and did so himself. When officers arrived at the trailer, Alden met them in the driveway and surrendered. She had unloaded the gun and placed it on the porch.
"She was very cooperative," Burton said.
Alden, who is a known artist in her community and has had exhibits in various Utah galleries, remained mostly expressionless during the hearing until a female deputy told of injuries she'd observed on Alden when the woman changed at the jail.
As the deputy talked about various scars, bruises, bumps and injuries — which included piercings on Alden's genitals, where Sessions allegedly planned to tie up a metal "chastity belt" — the petite woman in leg shackles broke down.
But Martin Sessions' sister, Rosemary Salyer, said during the hearing she didn't believe there had been any abuse.
"He's been married five times and he's never touched a woman," she said.
E-mail: lucy@desnews.com