Mitigation specialist Margaret DiFrank spent some time Thursday going over the five marriages of Shawna Forde to give jurors an idea of what she was like following her traumatic childhood.
At 19, Forde got married after a "fast courtship" to Jack Darling. The couple moved from Washington to Alaska, where they had a baby girl who died three weeks later.
DiFrank said Darling was abusive to Forde and while still married to him, she married her friend Gustavo Acevedo, a man from Nicaragua who wanted to stay in the country.
Although Forde's marriage to Darling did eventually end in divorce, her marriage to Acevedo was never dissolved, DiFrank said.
Forde got married to Anthony Eddy in 1990 after she gave birth to their son, Devon. The couple went on to have another child, Jaszmin.
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DiFrank said Eddy was an alcoholic who abused Forde, once leaving her naked in an alley. In fact, Eddy was so abusive, Devon uses the last name of Forde's next husband, James Duffey, DiFrank said.
Forde got involved with Duffey while both were working at Boeing and while still married to Eddy. (She and Eddy got divorced in 1995.)
There are conflicting reports as to whether Duffey was abusive to Forde.
DiFrank said Forde now regrets leaving Duffey. She has a lot of good memories of their time together and she remembers having extra money to do things.
She left Duffey because she wasn't in love with him and had good chemistry with her next husband, John Forde, DiFrank said.
At the end of her marriage to Duffey, DiFrank said Duffey was sleeping in an upstairs bedroom and Shawna and John were sleeping in a downstairs bedroom.
Forde stayed married to John Forde for eight years, they divorced in February 2009.
DiFrank didn't mention it, but John Forde was shot in late 2008 and prosecutors say Shawna Forde was considered a suspect. He survived and recently told prosecutors his former wife is a "master manipulator."
The mitigation expert also told jurors Thursday that Forde has tried to kill herself three times with prescription drug overdoses -- in 1987 after the baby died, in 1990 and again in 1995. (There was testimony earlier she also tried to commit suicide as a teenager.)
The defense has one more video to show jurors and then prosecutors are expected to put on an hour's worth of rebuttal evidence.
It looks like the attorneys will begin arguing whether or not Forde deserves the death penalty shortly before lunch.
