Like most battered women, Sheehan said it's just not that easy to leave an abusive spouse. "He was not going to allow me to leave."
Sheehan said even after Raymond was retired, he was always armed. He wore a gun around his waist and another strapped to his ankle, and he pointed a gun at her many times, she said.
"He'd put it to my head and told me if I left or told anybody that he would definitely use it. 'He would go down in glory,' is the words he used," Sheehan said.
The day before her husband's death, he allegedly punched his wife in the face and broke her nose after she said she refused to go on a vacation to Florida with him.
He took her to a nearby hospital for treatment, but Sheehan told the Daily News that Raymond called her on her cell phone while he waited in the parking lot and told her he would kill her if she told anyone what happened.
The next day, Sheehan said she shot Raymond 11 times while he shaved. Her lawyer argued the killing was in self-defense.
"Only at the last moment when she was about to die did she act. If she'd wanted to kill him she could have killed him over 15 years," said attorney Michael Dowd.
If found guilty of murder, Sheehan faces 15 years to life in prison. She is afraid of prison but was more afraid of her husband.
"I would never hurt anybody ever. We were really being hurt physically, emotionally, psychologically," she said.
Jennifer Sheehan said she is proud of what her mother did.
"As far as I look at it, he was never really a father to me. And I'm proud that she defended herself," Jennifer said. "He ripped our family apart. Everything he did, everything he said. He could have just left us alone but he wouldn't."
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