Man’s retrial in stabbing of wife goes to jury in Llano
LLANO — Jurors began deliberations Monday in the retrial of James B. Tenny after listening to starkly differing versions of why his wife, Joyce Mulvey, died at his hands in 1997.
The state contends it was cold-blooded murder, but the defense claims Tenny, now 53, fatally stabbed Mulvey, 57, in self-defense.
The jury deliberated about three hours Monday before recessing around 5:30 p.m. Deliberations will resume today.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in July set aside Tenny’s 1999 murder conviction, which had resulted in a 65-year sentence, ruling that he’d had ineffective defense counsel.
Mulvey, a twice-divorced home health aide, met Tenny around 1994 at craft fairs where she hawked refurbished jewelry and he peddled woodcarvings. They lived together for about three years before the May 12, 1997, clash that left her dead and him behind bars.
In closing arguments, defense counsel David Sheppard told jurors Monday that the evidence was clear that Tenny was trying to fend off Mulvey. The burden to disprove that falls on the state, he said, also asserting no evidence contradicted Tenny’s account.
Sheppard pointed out that Tenny called 911 during the fracas and that he tried to resuscitate Mulvey after fatally stabbing her.
But prosecutor Tom Cloudt told jurors not to fall for the elaborate alibis concocted by Tenny or his friends from the Christ of The Hills Monastery, where both he and Mulvey had worked.
”This is not self-defense, this is staged defense,” Cloudt said.
Tenny was indicted on a charge of murder, but District Judge Guilford Jones granted a defense request Monday to give jurors the option of convicting Tenny on the lesser charge of aggravated assault, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Tenny didn’t take the stand, but his testimony from the first trial, in Blanco, was entered as evidence.
He had said Mulvey was upset that he was moving out to live with his son.
Tenny said that after not speaking to each other for more than a day, without warning Mulvey splashed gasoline on him and flicked a lighter, then smashed a platter over his head and stabbed him with a large kitchen knife.
He said he fought back, punching Mulvey and breaking a wooden club over her head before he wrested control of the knife, then stabbed her again and again.
”I was in danger for my life,” Tenny testified. ”I was terrified.”
But Cloudt on Monday cited a neighbor’s testimony that it was Tenny who was seen shaking a gas can in the home minutes after Mulvey was stabbed. He also cited inconsistencies between her wounds and how Tenny said she got them.
”It’s a fake. It’s a fraud,” Cloudt said of Tenny’s self-defense claims.
Sarah Cramer, appearing by video deposition taken in Missouri, was the trial’s final witness.
”Mother Seraphima,” as Cramer was known in her days living at the monastery, recalled that on the day Mulvey died, she pushed a monk and then threatened to kill Tenny and to burn down the monastery.
”She was out of control,” Cramer testified.
zeke@express-news.net