There was no way to tell with any certainty, from her remains, when Sherry Palmer died. Her body was left to decompose for days under several layers of tarp underneath a wheelbarrow in the backyard of her home in April 2018.
But prosecutor William Sinclair told jurors Wednesday that Palmer, 63, died shortly after 3 p.m. that April 13, a conclusion drawn not from expert medical testimony but from a handy piece of technology — the smartwatch on the victim’s wrist.
Palmer’s watch showed her heart beating regularly until there was a sudden spike in her heart rate, followed almost immediately by nothing, Sinclair said. And phone records show she was not alone. Her husband, Patrick Palmer, was with her .
Jurors began deliberations Wednesday in Patrick Palmer’s first-degree murder trial. If convicted, he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
The defendant, 57, originally told police that he shot his wife during an argument about his continued drug use — she had threatened to leave him if he relapsed again.