After a jury trial, Sharon Ann Shields was found guilty of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony in the shooting death of her husband, Rufus Shields. She was sentenced to life imprisonment for the malice murder conviction and a five-year consecutive term of imprisonment for the firearm possession charge. Shields appeals from the denial of her motion for a new trial.1
1. The evidence presented at trial by the State showed that about 3:00 a.m. on July 25, 1997, Shields telephoned her sister and brother and asked both to come over to her house. She left instructions with her sister on where they would find the house key. Upon their arrival, the siblings located the key, a cordless phone and a note in an outside grill. They found Shields and her husband in a back room both with gunshot wounds. The note written by Shields to her brother and sister explained “I love you, I’m sorry This son-of-b had a gun under the pillow for ME That’s COLD. . . .” Police officers dispatched to the scene found Shields’s husband lying on a bed with a visible wound to the head and not breathing. Officers found a 9mm gun on the nightstand next to the bed. Shields was lying on a blanket on the floor with gunshot wounds to her upper left breast, and a .22 caliber revolver with spent casings at her feet. Investigators did not find any evidence of a struggle. Emergency personnel transported Shields to the hospital where an emergency room physician treated her for two nonthreatening gunshot wounds and a potentially life-threatening overdose of barbiturates. While being treated, Shields described to a nurse how she used two different guns to shoot her husband, explaining that she did so because her husband had threatened to divorce her. Shields did not remember shooting herself. The medical examiner testified at trial that the victim died of gunshot wounds to the head, two from a small caliber firearm at close range, and one from a larger caliber firearm from farther away. The State’s firearms expert concluded that the bullets were fired by the guns recovered at the scene. This evidence is sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find Shields guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes charged. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560 1979.
