Testimony: Friends knew of abuse

PALMER — Jason Donlon’s best friend said that when he received a frantic voice message from his friend in October of 2010, he knew something was wrong.

“He said, ‘call me because I really need you,’ and I knew. I knew that something bad had happened,” Richard Sheetz told jurors Friday.

He tried to call back but couldn’t. He said, he assumed then that Donlon had hurt or killed his wife. But, actually, it was Donlon who had died at his wife’s hands just a couple days after that call.

Sheetz was testifying in the murder trial of Lisa Donlon. Both sides agree that on Oct. 7, 2010, Lisa Donlon shot her husband in the back as he slept in their Butte-area cabin. Her attorneys argue that her husband had threatened multiple times to kill her and that he had tortured her for days prior to the shooting. Prosecutors contend that she had better options available, that she could have left or called police and didn’t need to shoot a sleeping man in the back.

Superior Court Judge Kari Kristiansen ruled on Friday that she would allow defense attorneys to tell the jury it can consider self-defense as a possible justification for a not-guilty verdict. District Attorney Roman Kalytiak said he intends to appeal that ruling.

Sheetz said he had known Jason Donlon since in 1989 when they were both stationed at Camp LeJeune, N.C.

As a young Marine, Sheetz said, his friend “would actively seek out conflict.”

It’s a behavior that didn’t taper off as his friend matured. They wound up living in different parts of the country, but kept in touch by phone and through occasional visits. In 2007, Jason Donlon stayed with Sheetz and his wife at their home in Colorado. In a conversation at the kitchen table they talked about his friend’s marriage.

“He told me that they were having problems and he told me that it had become physical,” Sheetz testified. “He told me, ‘I smacked her around a little bit.’”

Sheetz said he didn’t approve and he tried to help. He lined up a job for Jason Donlon where he worked, told his friend to move down there, take some time and cool off.

“He said that he wouldn’t do that,” Sheetz said.

Sheetz’s wife, Jennifer Sheetz, said that she had also tried to help, offering to fly Lisa Donlon and her three boys to Colorado.

It seemed apparent from her testimony that as years went by she could see the Donlons’ relationship deteriorating. At one point she and Lisa Donlon implemented a code phrase, “bunny ears,” to indicate when Lisa Donlon felt unable to talk freely on the phone because someone else was listening.

“I didn’t witness any physical violence take place, but I did hear some things over the phone,” Jennifer Sheetz testified.

Sometime in 2006, Jennifer Sheetz said, she started to get very concerned. Lisa Donlon told her that her husband had cut her hair, raped her and threw her outside without any clothes on.

“I felt that he just really didn’t see her as a person anymore, the way he was treating her,” she said. Later, she said, “Jason was a very generous person. He was a lot of fun. There were a lot of great things about him. But he had a horrible temper.”

Also Friday, Kalytiak got a chance to question Lisa Donlon directly.

“Every time one of these things happened you should have been or you were re-evaluating your marriage?” Kalytiak asked.

“No, not every time,” Lisa Donlon said, explaining there were times that her husband promised he’d do better, that things would change. “When you love somebody you believe them when they tell you that.”

Roman asked about the time Jason Donlon filed for a divorce. Lisa Donlon said that he’d done that as a ruse to get her to come back by scaring her into thinking that with his lawyer he’d be able to get full custody of the kids.

“He told me I had no chance of winning because I had no job, I had no lawyer and I had no place to live,” Lisa Donlon said.

“You chose domestic violence and rape and name calling over divorce and some financial struggling?” Kalytiak asked.

“He said that things would get better and we would get counseling,” Lisa Donlon replied.

Kalytiak asked her if the Donlons were a couple that enjoyed turbulence in their relationship, if she and Jason Donlon thrived on conflict. She said they were not. Later, he asked about a possible explanation for the torture she described in the days leading up to her shooting Jason Donlon — she said previously that her hands were bound and she was suspended from the ceiling as he whipped her, poked her with needles and slapped her.

“You would agree that what you described to the jury sounds like a bondage-type situation,” Kalytiak asked her.

“No. That’s sick,” Lisa Donlon replied.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.