BANGOR — Robert Burton testified in his own defense in court Monday that he would write love notes to Stephanie Gebo, the woman whom prosecutors say he murdered with three shots to the back with her own gun at her Parkman home in June 2015.
Burton, 40, said that three days after the couple broke up on May 30, 2015, after being together for 2 1/2 years, Gebo, then 37, allowed him into her home and into her bedroom.
The next night, Burton was shot once in the upper torso with Gebo’s 9 mm pistol as he climbed through her bedroom window, then turned the gun on her and killed her — the final shot coming while she was already down on the floor, prosecutors say.
Burton told Justice Robert Mullen that he was willing to take the stand Monday and waived his rights to remain silent.
Assistant Attorneys General Donald Macomber and John Alsop did not get a chance to cross-examine Burton on Monday, the sixth day of Burton’s murder trial at the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor.
The father and stepmother of Robert Burton testified earlier in the day Monday, noting that the pair appeared to be a loving couple.
“I would describe their relationship as two people in love,” Roger Burton told the jury Monday.
Robert Burton never threatened to hurt Gebo, Roger Burton said, but his son suspected that Gebo was up to something “shady and sneaky.”
Two weeks earlier, Robert Burton had found messages proving to him that she was cheating on him with other men, Roger Burton said.
The defense argues that Burton acted in self-defense after Gebo shot him with a handgun she kept within reach in her bedroom, while prosecutors are painting a picture of Burton as an obsessive, jealous man who suspected that his former girlfriend had been cheating on him when he murdered her.
Direct examination will continue Tuesday morning.
Doug Harlow can be contacted at 612-2367 or at:
dharlow@centralmaine.com
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