EL RENO, Okla. – A shocking slip of the tongue on the witness stand Monday from a former lover of a murder trial defendant prompts a Canadian County judge to instruct the jury to disregard the comment.
It came during testimony in the Becky Bryan trial.
Bryan is accused of killing her husband of 33 years inside their Mustang home back in September of 2011.
The victim is Nichols Hills Fire Chief Keith Bryan.
Becky claimed an intruder shot her husband but she was arrested after authorities found the gun used in the shooting in the clothes dryer.
Wesley Hubert knew Becky Bryan as his Realtor but testified Monday in El Reno their relationship was also sexual.
When asked by prosecutors exactly when he slept with Becky, Hubert responded “the same day she shot her husband.”
Hubert then caught himself and said it was the day Becky’s husband was shot.
The judge asked the jury to disregard the comment.
“Once you hear something like that, it’s hard to put it out of your mind,” attorney and legal analyst David Slane said. “It shows that this witness, who she was having an intimate relationship with that day, didn’t have a problem connecting those dots and so if he connected them, the question is, what is the jury thinking?”
Pamela Woodard, a long-time friend of the victim, testified that Becky once told her about plans to fake a pregnancy test In order to get back together with Mark Holbrook, her ex-lover; the man prosecutors said Becky was obsessed with.
Woodard said Becky had a child’s name picked out, was going to send out birth announcements and wanted to use a pregnant woman’s test results to pull it off.
“We want justice for Keith,” Woodard said. “It was very difficult. It was very sad to re-live everything. It’s very surreal. She’s not the person she used to be.”
Becky’s hairdresser, Sharon Valdez, testified that on the way to the hospital, Becky asked if she had ever loved somebody so much that she would do something like that for someone.
But she said Becky didn’t explain what she meant by that question.
Also taking the stand, Mustang Detective Camie McNeil, who said on the night of the shooting, she found Becky on the back porch with her feet propped up on a table, smoking a cigarette.
She said Becky was on the phone and laughed at having to be tested for gun shot residue because she had seen that on “CSI.”
But Becky’s defense attorney, Gary James, tried to demonstrate how detectives didn’t thoroughly gather evidence at the scene.
Prosecutors played a recorded conversation for the jury between Becky and authorities at OU Medical Center, where Keith Bryan died from a gunshot wound to the head the morning after the shooting.
Becky could be heard saying she and Keith were “quite in love” but also said she didn’t know he loved her until she moved out and filed for divorce in 2010.
She also could be heard saying her husband’s employer, the Nichols Hills Fire Department, was hiring people four years prior to the shooting and said the intruder who shot her husband was probably one of those candidates.
Becky told police after the intruder shot her husband in the living room, he told her he was sorry, but “he should have (expletive) hired me.”
Testimony continues Tuesday morning at the Canadian County courthouse in El Reno.