A West Plains woman has been charged with first-degree murder after allegedly shooting her husband multiple times as he fled their house Wednesday evening.
She is also charged with four counts of armed criminal action, two counts of armed criminal action and one count of first-degree domestic assault. All are felonies.
Brandy G. Wilson, 49, reportedly told officers her husband had been abusive over the past few months and she had "snapped" after the couple had an argument at their home on Columbus Street.
Police responded to a report a man had been shot and was lying on a porch at about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday. The location turned out to be a house across the street from the couple’s residence. The victim was identified by police as John Lee Wilson, Sr., 48, in a press statement emailed Thursday afternoon.
According to a probable cause statement written by Detective Sgt. Aaron Galiher with the West Plains Police, Wilson told officers the victim had been calling her "crazy" and threatened to place her “in the psych ward” for an evaluation because she told him she heard people outside of their house, but he didn't.
She also told police she overheard her husband on the phone asking someone to kill her, she believed he placed a hit on her, and she heard snipers outside and inside the house. In recounting the events of that evening, Brandy Wilson stated she'd picked her husband up from work and at 4 p.m. and the argument started around 9 p.m.
She told police there had been a scuffle, she picked up a pistol from a nightstand in their bedroom and shot the victim, Galiher’s statement shows.
He ran from their house towards the neighbor's house, she reportedly said, and she thought he was going to ask the neighbor for a gun, so she followed him across the street, stopped at the edge of the road and aimed at his chest and stomach before shooting again.
She didn't know how many times she shot him but continued until he fell down, she told officers. The statement, submitted to prosecutors, added that two uninvolved people were in the neighboring house at the time of the incident.
Galiher reported the evidence at the scene included a trail of blood leading from the Wilsons’ house, and it was apparent that multiple rounds had been fired at their house and from the street.
In a statement from the West Plains Police Department issued Thursday morning, it was disclosed that officers arrived on the scene after hearing several gunshots while they were at nearby location on Jackson Street; when they arrived, they found John Wilson, Sr., lying on the front porch of a home.
The victim was unresponsive when police arrived and pronounced dead after medical personnel were dispatched to the scene. At the time of that release, his identification, as well as that of the shooter, was withheld, pending police’s ability to notify his next of kin.
As of Thursday afternoon, court records show Brandy Wilson is held on $100,000 bond, no court dates have yet been set and legal representation has not been assigned to or hired by the defendant.
The case is being tried by Howell County Prosecutor Mike Hutchings and Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Rizwan Ahad.
