By Eléonor Picciotto
BOSTON- “She had no other choice,” Attorney Rosemary Scapicchio began as she defended her client at the Suffolk Superior Court House closing trial on a rainy Monday of March.
Sharon Fitzpatrick was charged with second-degree murder for the fatal stabbing of her husband, Sylvester Mitchell, in their Dorchester home. Assistant District Attorney David Deakin, chief of the DA’s Family Protection and Sexual Assault Bureau, is trying the case with defense attorney Rosemary Scapicchio before Judge Judith Fabricant in courtroom 817.
On May 5, 2007, Sharon Fitzpatrick, 39, had prepared a cake and gotten a bottle of champagne to celebrate the 40th birthday of her husband Sylvester, who arrived home in Dorchester around 4a.m. that night after she tried to call him several times. About a half hour later the fight that started between the couple degenerated. Fitzpatrick grabbed the knife she had brought to their bedroom to cut the cake, and stabbed her husband twice to death.
Mose Mitchell, who was living one floor above their house, heard the screams, went down, and saw his brother lying on the floor bleeding and repeating, “I love my wife.” He called 911 and shortly after Sylvester Mitchell was admitted at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, where he died few hours later.
According to her attorney, Fitzpatrick had to kill her husband to save her life. “He was a violent-vicious man, an out-of-control person,” said Scappicchio. “Not that he needed a push, but he had cocaine, alcohol and a history of violence in his system.”
Sylvester Mitchell strangled his ex-girlfriend four years before, and 17 years prior to this incident he shot a man. When her husband came back Fitzpatrick tried to get him to leave, knowing that he was drunk, he had killed before, explained her lawyer to the 40 people hearing the trial, “She had no other choice,” she repeated.
The fingerprint police officials found on the knife was between the blade and the handle. According to the defense attorney, this proved that it was a defensive and not aggressive act. ADA Deakin claimed Fitzpatrick stabbed her husband in anger and not in fear, “when she was asked by the police why she did that,” Deakin said, “Fitzpatrick said she was mad, not afraid.”
“Stop Sylvester. No Sylvester, no!” are the words Mose Mitchell and his wife heard, before the drama. “Do you yell this unless you are in fear for your life?” asked Scapicchio to the 13 jurors. She continued, “Sharon Fitzpatrick grabbed whatever was available, it was either him or her. She had no time to think.”
“There is a lot of imagination going into the defense,” argued the prosecutor, criticizing his opponent because this “case was based on evidences, not speculations.”
Deakin reiterated the audience the nine calls Fitzpatrick had placed between 2.43 a.m. and 4.10 a.m. yelling at her husband, Deaking said Fitzpatrick was angry, locked him out of the house, then stabbed her mini-van tires, hid the knife behind the bedroom’s mirror instead of calling 911 with the phone that was charging on the bed, and told the police in the presence of the victim who responded “they must have come from behind,” that he had “come home stabbed.”
Deakin said the evidences showed that there was no sign of life and death struggle, the room was not damaged and that Fitzpatrick “lied over and over again to the police.”
She unlawfully stabbed her husband “not once but twice in the chest two to three and four to five inches deep” without justification or excuse. The prosecutor closed his pleading by saying that Fitzpatrick was charged with a second-degree murder because there was no premeditation.
“She is guilty for the killing of her husband and must be held accountable,” responded Deakin after Scapicchio said that, “we have all made yelling phone calls when people are late, this does not make her a murderer.”
Is Sharon Fitzpatrick is not guilty for stabbing her husband because it was an act of absolute defense? Or was it a deliberate action?
According to the DA on April 4, 2010, jurors sent down a note indicating that they were at an impasse in their deliberations could not reach a unanimous decision.
“We are currently waiting to schedule a new trial,” said DA Jack Wark.
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