A St. Paul man admitted in court Thursday that he fatally shot his longtime partner but quickly backtracked and said his shotgun unexpectedly slid into his trigger finger.
"I didn't think it would go off," John G. Weisner Jr. said during his plea hearing.
Ramsey County District Judge William Leary ultimately accepted Weisner's guilty plea after several rounds of questioning.
Weisner, 56, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder with intent in the Sept. 17 shooting of Ramona Turner, his partner of 40 years.
Weisner said that he shot Turner, 54, after a night out drinking with her, their two grown sons, one of the son's girlfriends and a male friend.
Weisner and Turner returned to their home in the 100 block of E. 6th Street between 12:30 and 1 a.m. He went to sleep in the bedroom, and she lay down on a love seat, where she had been sleeping since telling Weisner she was leaving him.
Weisner testified that he awoke when he heard Turner talking on the phone with the male friend from the bar. The two had a flirtatious relationship, he said.
Weisner said he retrieved shotgun shells from the basement and loaded two of them into the gun in his bedroom.
