This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Jury selection began Tuesday in the trial for an Orem man accused of fatally shooting his wife in 2012, but opening statements in the four-week trial are not expected until Wednesday.
Conrad Mark Truman, 32, is accused of killing Heidy Truman in 2012. His motive, prosecutors have claimed, was to collect nearly a million dollars in life insurance benefits.
According to testimony at a preliminary hearing last year, Conrad Truman has offered a number of theories of how his wife died.
He told police that she may have killed herself, or that someone outside their Orem home may have shot her. In a Facebook post, he called his wife's death a "complete freak accident" and that "she had a gun in her hand and slipped."
Prosecutors have argued that evidence from the medical examiner — that the gun that killed 25-year-old Heidy Truman was pressed up against her skin when it was fired — ruled out an accidental firing, leaving only suicide or murder. No suicide note was found, and the only other person who was in the Orem home on the day of Heidy Truman's death was her husband.
Several police officers testified last December during the preliminary hearing that when they were called to the Truman's Orem home on Sept. 30, 2012, they though they were responding to a suicide. But Conrad Truman's strange, erratic behavior made them consider the home a crime scene.
"He threatened to kill me and everyone I know if I didn't save Heidy," Orem police Cpl. William Crook testified.
In the house, police found blood everywhere — in the kitchen where Heidy Truman's naked body lay, in the front entry, the living room, a bedroom, a bathroom and on Truman himself.
Conrad Truman told investigators that he was in another room when his wife was shot. The two had bickered that night, and she went into the bathroom to take a shower, he allegedly told police. He said that she finished showering about 20 minutes later, while he was watching TV in the living room. Then, according to his initial account recorded by police, Truman heard a loud pop and saw his wife walk out from the bathroom area and collapse on the kitchen floor.
Conrad Truman called 911, and Heidy Truman was taken to a nearby hospital, where she died.
Though Conrad Truman claimed someone else shot his wife through the window of their Orem home, several officers testified that there was no bullet hole in a window or anywhere at their home that would indicate she was shot by someone outside.
Orem police Detective Tom Wallace testified last year that the shot that killed Heidy Truman came from Conrad Truman's gun. However, the state crime lab could not identify any definitive fingerprints on the gun, Wallace testified.
Twitter: @jm_miller