Trooper testifies for Donlon in her murder trial

PALMER — The question is: did Lisa Donlon commit murder when she shot her husband, or was it an act of justifiable self-defense?

It’s not hard to find people to argue either side — even, it turns out, in the law enforcement community.

Wednesday, Sgt. Michelyn Manrique took the witness stand in Donlon’s murder trial. But, as District Attorney Roman Kalytiak pointed out in his first questions, her role this time was reversed. This time the current patrol supervisor and former head of the Valley’s detachment of the Alaska Bureau of Investigation was testifying for the defense.

What she was allowed to say in court was narrowly restricted.

She could not testify as to who was credible, whose interviews were corroborated by evidence, or whether she believed Donlon was telling the truth. But it was clear she thought highly of Donlon.

“I have never had a witness, defendant, suspect as cooperative as Lisa Donlon,” she said. “There was never a time that Lisa Donlon asked anything of me.”

She said Donlon would sometimes call her, and Manrique would begin the conversation by telling her she didn’t have to talk, that she was a suspect in her husband’s killing. Donlon would choose to talk.

The consensus in the courtroom seems to be that Jason Donlon was asleep in bed when he was shot in the back. Lisa Donlon and her attorneys contend that she had being held captive and tortured for days leading up to the shooting and that she believed he would kill her. Prosecutors have raised doubts about the severity of the abuse and pointed to numerous points along the way when she could have fled and to various options she had for places to run.

During Manrique’s testimony, Donlon’s attorney, Zachary Renfro, asked what the evidence of abuse she collected added up to.

“If Jason Donlon had been alive would you have arrested him?” Renfro asked.

“Yes, for assault and, also, based on the (Sexual Assault Response Team) exam, for sexual assault,” Manrique said.

Other possible charges: kidnapping and a more serious assault charge for allegations that Lisa Donlon had been strangled.

That the murder charge is a tough call is evidenced by the fact that, at least initially, Manrique and her team, after consulting with then Assistant District Attorney Rachel Gernat, chose not to arrest Donlon.

And then, the first time the case went to a Palmer Grand Jury, that body also declined to charge her.

Kalytiak back in 2010 defended that move, saying that he believed the jury found Donlon had acted in self-defense.

Both he and the grand jury — the same grand jury that chose not to charge her — eventually reversed course, opting for a second-degree murder charge. The charge is not as serious as first-degree murder, but carries the same potential penalty of 99 years.

Renfro, in arguments outside the presence of the jury, at one point let fly with his opinion about how everything happened.

“This is a messed-up case, the way this has all gone down,” he told the court.

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