Trial opens for man accused of fatally shooting estranged wife in front of kids

Troy White sent more than 130 text messages to his estranged wife, Echo Lucas, and called her more than 30 times in the hours before he fatally shot her in front of their five children, prosecutors said Tuesday during opening statements in his murder trial.

“Get ready for hell,” one of the last messages said.

He stormed into the home where Lucas was staying with her boyfriend, Joseph Averman, on July 27, 2012, and shot them both. Averman survived, but Lucas died almost instantly, prosecutor Elizabeth Mercer told jurors.

White had sent his wife dozens of other angry messages during the months they were separated, and those messages became more and more intense when Lucas started dating Averman, the prosecutor said.

“That relationship angered him,” Mercer said. “It angered him tremendously. That anger festered for weeks and weeks and weeks.”

White’s public defender, David Lopez-Negrete, argued that the shooting occurred in the heat of passion.

“This was a rash impulse,” the lawyer told jurors. White was “someone who had hope of getting back with his wife, whom he adored.”

Despite their separation, the couple agreed that Lucas would live in their home with their three children and the woman’s two other children from a prior marriage during the week, and White would live in the residence with the children over the weekend.

Last year, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that White should not face a burglary charge in the case, concluding that a person cannot commit burglary of a home when the person has an absolute right to enter the home.

White kept his house key, arriving usually on Friday after­noons and leaving on Sundays, while Lucas and Averman would stay elsewhere.

But when he arrived that deadly Friday around noon, White did not want the couple to get out alive, prosecutors said.

“Just wait and see,” he said in a text message to Lucas.

White faces charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder, and five counts of child abuse, neglect or endanger­ment.

Lopez-Negrete asked jurors to find White guilty of manslaughter.

But to show that White should be convicted of the most serious crime, Mercer pointed to a Facebook post he made shortly before the killing.

“If you love someone, set them free,” he wrote. “If they don’t come back, hunt them down and kill them.”

One of the children, who was 8 at the time, took the witness stand Tuesday and told jurors that his stepfather shot Averman before he shot Lucas.

The boy said he then yelled out, “Why’d you shoot my mommy?”

He said he ran up to her, and she was gurgling, her face turning gray.

Then the boy grabbed a phone and handed it to Averman, so he could dial 911.

The boy said he turned back toward his mother one last time.

“I love you,” he told her. “I hope you can hear me.”

Contact reporter David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Find him on Twitter: @randompoker