Retired NYPD Sgt. Sheehan killed by bruised & broken wife Barbara

...The couple frequently argued, neighbors said, and she was seen with what appeared to be a broken nose and bruises while praying in church on Sunday... "There were all these times when she would come back here with a black eye or a cut on the head. She would cover for him and say she fell"...

Police: Wife of slain sergeant pumped him full of lead
NY Daily News
BY ALISON GENDAR agendar@nydailynews.com
and NICOLE BODE
February 19th 2008
[Excerpts] The Queens woman accused of killing her ex-cop husband pumped him full of lead with two of his own guns, piercing nearly all of his organs, police sources said Tuesday... The bullets injured his lungs, aorta, liver, stomach, intestines, spinal cord, heart and major blood vessels, the city medical examiner's office said. He died at the scene. Barbara Sheehan's relatives said she snapped after years of abuse, culminating after he punched her in the face and broke her nose Monday... Sheehan was arraigned before Judge William Harrington on murder and weapons possession charges and ordered held without bail... Sheehan wore a white hospital bracelet on her left wrist, left over from her trip to Queens Hospital Center when she complained of chest pains after her arrest... Relatives said Sheehan also made a trip to St. John's Queens Hospital after her husband punched her... Barbara Sheehan earned $44,551 a year as a secretary at Intermediate School... they did not recall her coming to work with bruises, except after a recent trip to Jamaica with her husband. She told colleagues she fell in the tub, the sources said.
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EX-COP IS SLAIN 'BY WIFE'
CHURCH MOM BUSTED
By CAROLYN SALAZAR, LARRY CELONA and C.J. SULLIVAN
February 19, 2008
[Excerpts] A churchgoing mother-of-two from Queens gunned down her husband, a retired NYPD sergeant, while he was shaving in the bathroom of the family's home yesterday, police said. Barbara Sheehan, 46, a fixture at Our Lady of Grace Church in Howard Beach, drew her husband's service weapon and fired eight times after a violent dispute, according to a police source. Raymond Sheehan, 48, was struck by five bullets and died at the scene. His wife was arrested. The couple frequently argued, neighbors said, and she was seen with what appeared to be a broken nose and bruises while praying in church on Sunday. That day, she had also gone to St. John's Queens Hospital for reasons that were not clear - but left before she was treated, the source said. "There's a reason she did this," said a neighbor who identified herself only as Kathy. "He was free with his hands and she probably couldn't take it... When you saw her being taken out in handcuffs, you could see the broken nose"... "I knew Ray as a loving husband and a great family man," said former NYPD First Deputy Commissioner Joseph Dunne...
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Ex-cop slain by wife, says family
NY Daily News
BY MIKE JACCARINO, KERRY BURKE and ALISON GENDAR
February 19th 2008
[Excerpts] ...The school secretary and mother of two decided she'd had enough after her husband broke her nose in a Sunday brawl, Barbara Sheehan's family said. "There were all these times when she would come back here with a black eye or a cut on the head. She would cover for him and say she fell," Barbara's dad, Michael Henry, said. "All the women who were being abused or have been abused should speak up before they get to this point where it's a disaster... Just last night she was abused." Friends of the Sheehans said the couple had fought Sunday... After he allegedly punched his wife in the face, Raymond Sheehan took her to St. John's Queens Hospital for treatment... When the couple got home, "He threatened to kill her and then he said he was gonna kill me," Henry said. "I haven't been able to talk to my daughter, but she said this to my other daughter, her sister." -- "We figured it would be the other way around," one of Raymond Sheehan's family members told another. "Ray was the one on the edge. The job did it to him." Neighbors said they heard gunfire coming from inside the 158th Ave. home about 11:30a.m. Monday. "I heard six shots," said a 30-year-old man who lives down the block. "I heard the first one and then I began counting. They were continuous. They weren't sporadic. 'Boom! Boom! Boom!'"... Neighbors said they've heard the two fighting for years... An NYPD spokesman said the home had no history of police responding to a domestic dispute...
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Wife Arraigned In NYPD Sergeant Murder Case
Pleads Not Guilty; Neighbors Say Domestic Abuse May Have Been Motive
WCBS-TV New York, NY
Lou Young
Feb 19, 2008
[Excerpts] Neighbors say it was payback for a pattern of abuse. The wife of a New York City police sergeant was charged with shooting her husband to death... 46-year-old Barbara Sheehan pleaded not guilty to murder charges... Attorney Michael Dowd, who's represented many abused women, says Sheehan may have felt her life was at stake. "She found herself in a position where, according to her judgment, it was life or death for her," said Dowd... Neighbors told CBS 2 HD she'd been in church Sunday bearing the marks of a beating. "She didn't look good," one person said. "Apparently she had a broken nose from the night before. Somebody broke her nose"... One neighbor was even trying to applaud as she was taken away in cuffs...
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Wife of slain NYPD sergeant held without bail
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 19th 2008
[Excerpts] ..."This is a terribly sad and tragic case of apparent marital discord that has left two children to grapple with the fact that not only did their father's life end in violence but that their mother has been charged in his death," District Attorney Richard A. Brown said in a statement.
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Retired Police Officer Shot Dead at Home
New York Times
By FERNANDA SANTOS
February 19, 2008
...Investigators said that the retired sergeant, Raymond Sheehan, 48, was shot between 11:30 a.m. and noon, but that the police were not notified until 12:52 p.m. Mr. Sheehan’s wife, Barbara, 46, called her sister after the shooting; the sister came to the house, at 99-08 158th Avenue, and then dialed 911... Officers found Mr. Sheehan dead in an upstairs bedroom, shot several times, the police said. The police said that Ms. Sheehan shot her husband with a gun that belonged to him. Two handguns — a 9-millimeter pistol and a .38-caliber revolver — were recovered from the house. Law enforcement officials said that Ms. Sheehan had a “fresh facial injury” when they arrived...
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Retired cop's wife held without bail in his death
Newsday
BY PATRICK FALBY lidesk@newsday.com
February 19, 2008
[Excerpts] A Howard Beach woman was ordered held without bail Tuesday after allegedly killing her retired cop husband, a slaying her lawyer suggested was motivated by fears for her life. The victim, Raymond Sheehan, and the suspect, Barbara Sheehan -- who was charged with second-degree murder -- had what neighbors and police sources said was a hostile, tense marriage and said that the victim abused his wife... Sheehan retired from the New York Police Department as a sergeant in 2002. He spent most of his career in the Crime Scene Unit and was part of the team that sifted for human remains at the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island after the Sept. 11 terror attack. He coached neighborhood sports teams... But other neighbors, plus his wife's family, told police the couple were often at odds and that he physically abused her. Shortly before the shooting, the couple fought, neighbors and her family told police, and they said he punched her in the face. "The decedent was, in fact, the aggressor," lawyer Douglas Dollinger said in court during Barbara Sheehan's arraignment. The suspect appeared to be on the verge of tears in court. The couple's college-age children, Jennifer and Raymond, sat in the second row, weeping...
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