The jury heard on Wednesday morning that money was already tight when she started planning to leave her husband. Though she had two college diplomas, she worked at a series of low-paying jobs — ranging from receptionist, dental hygienist and as a baker at a grocery store.
Richmond, who stands statue-still in the prisoner’s box when his jury files in and out of court, met his much-younger wife about two years before they married in 2005.
The jury heard on Wednesday that his PTSD was so crippling that he slept up to 16 hours a day — sometimes in a closet — and that his wife considered his diagnosis an excuse to be lazy.
The couple had bought a second house with the hopes that the soldier, on medical leave, would fix it up and flip it on the market, but nothing was getting done, court heard.
“That place was a mess … and she’d try to coax him into doing it,” the slain woman’s mother told court Wednesday morning. “There was always an excuse and Melissa was fed up with it.”
