GUILTY MI - Robert Seaman, 57, murdered, Farmington Hills, 10 May 2004

http://www.freep.com/news/locoak/farm15_20040515.htm

"She walked into the kitchen and slammed the ax into her husband's head.

Then she dragged her husband's body a short distance into the attached garage and began stabbing him with a knife and smashing him with a sledgehammer, police said.

The next day, Seaman taught her fourth-grade class, and then stopped at Home Depot a second time for cleaning materials to wipe up the mess, police said. "

Her attorney says she endured abuse. The school says she had a violent side.

Sad story.

I really feel for the 2 sons. I can't imagine losing a father and your mother being held responsible for it.

The youngest son is now going to graduate on Sunday without his father and mother.

The end came on the afternoon of Mother's Day. Nancy and Robert Seaman were celebrating at home in Farmington Hills with their older son when they began to argue.

The yelling grew so intense, the son left for his Downriver home. Within 10 minutes, Nancy Seaman was at the Commerce Township Home Depot purchasing an ax, said Farmington Hills police, who reconstructed the night and following days through evidence and interviews.

Police say Seaman then returned to the rambling Tudor in the Ramblewood subdivision. She walked into the kitchen and slammed the ax into her husband's head.

Then she dragged her husband's body a short distance into the attached garage and began stabbing him with a knife and smashing him with a sledgehammer, police said.

The next day, Seaman taught her fourth-grade class, and then stopped at Home Depot a second time for cleaning materials to wipe up the mess, police said.

On Friday afternoon, Seaman, 52, stood before 47th District Judge James Brady. Clad in a green sweatshirt, she pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder. She faces life in prison if convicted.

Robert Seaman, 50, was left with 20 stab wounds, a crushed skull, a fractured clavicle and a slashed throat.

Nancy Seaman's attorney said Friday that she had endured a lifetime of physical abuse from her husband, including hitting, kicking and knifing.

Administrators at Longacre Elementary School told detectives that the friendly and award-winning teacher appeared disheveled and out of sorts on Monday, according to Police Chief William Dwyer.

After the final bell rang Monday afternoon, police said, Nancy Seaman returned to the Home Depot. Videotapes from the store and receipts found in her purse revealed bleach, a tarp, duct tape and products used to scrub her home were purchased with cash.

On Tuesday night, a relative filed a missing person's report for Robert Seaman. By Wednesday, an out-of-town relative called police suggesting foul play. Police went to the Seaman home.

There they found Robert Seaman's body in the back of the couple's black Ford Explorer. His body was wrapped in the tarp, tightly coiled with duct tape. A knife was discovered inside the tarp.

"In the classroom she displayed a friendliness. She had a close relationship with her students, and she was well-liked," Dwyer said.

"But then there was another side," he said. "She'd be outraged, violent. She threw things."

Employees at her husband's business, Put One in the Upper Deck, an indoor batting cage in Northville, told police she had a temper.

Inside the Seamans' gated neighborhood, details of the couple's relationship have residents buzzing.

http://www.freep.com/news/locoak/farm15_20040515.htm

I don't know how many of you may be interested in this case- I didn't realize the trial was underway. I saw a clip tonight of Seaman testifying. Couldn't base a verdict on a couple of soundbites - but she did not seem credible. On the other hand - how could she wield that hatchet with such rage if she were not abused?

So- some clips:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...chertellsjurorsaboutkillinghusbandwithhatchet

A former fourth-grade teacher vividly demonstrated for jurors Wednesday how she butchered her husband of 30 years with a hatchet.


With a loose wrist and clenched jaw, Nancy Seaman swung her arm back and fourth to mime the 16 blows that killed her husband. Seaman also climbed out of the witness box and cowered on the floor to show how she tried to fend off her husband. Seaman said he attacked her after an argument May 10.
"It was the grand finale of fights," she told the court.
Seaman, testifying for a second day in her first-degree murder trial, said that her husband began abusing her two weeks after their wedding and continued throughout their marriage.

http://www.freep.com/news/locoak/seaman8e_20041208.htm

Why did Nancy Seaman leave her husband's decomposing body in the backseat of the family's SUV in the three days after she hacked him to death in the garage, even taking the SUV to run errands as the body began to smell?
"He was my husband," she said, somewhat exasperated, as a jury listened, mesmerized. "He stayed with me for 2 1/2 days. I just couldn't get rid of him."
Seaman testified in her own defense for most of Tuesday in her first-degree murder trial, telling an increasingly bizarre tale about what happened beginning on Mother's Day and ending three days later, when police discovered Robert Seaman's body with dozens of stab and slash wounds, wrapped in layers of tarp and duct tape, stashed in the back of the black Ford Explorer parked in the Seamans' driveway.
At times, jurors seemed perplexed and quietly mortified as Seaman, 52, sometimes loud and animated, told them how she killed her 57-year-old husband following a fight in which she feared for her life and then went about her daily routine, with the body in the couple's garage or the SUV.

http://www.freep.com/news/metro/dickerson8e_20041208.htm

Whether they are 6 or 60, few boys ever outgrow the desire to please their moms. And in that respect, at least, Greg Seaman is just the latest in a long procession of dutiful sons.
But most mothers do not hack their husbands to death with a hatchet, and most sons are never called on to forgive such an act, much less justify it to a jury.
That is Greg Seaman's unique burden, and on Tuesday, in the Oakland County courtroom where his mother is on trial for his father's killing, its weight was made manifest in a tape recording played for jurors.
Greg, the younger of Nancy and Robert Seaman's two adult sons, took the witness stand in his mother's defense last week, testifying that his father was a violent man who drank too much and posed a growing danger to Nancy Seaman's safety. Greg's account contrasted sharply with that of his older brother, Jeff, who described their father as a loving, high-spirited man struggling to escape a loveless marriage.

So, how did this end?

Gardenmom, I did follow this but thought no one else was interested. She was convicted.

http://www.freep.com/news/locoak/seaman3e_20050103.htm

The gates Seaman will see from now on are topped with concertina wire. When she is sentenced to life in prison later this month for the hatchet murder of her husband, Robert, last Mother's Day, she will say good-bye to a seemingly enviable affluent life and a career, that by all accounts, she adored.


The Robert Scott Correctional Facility in Plymouth, where Nancy Seaman will begin serving her term, is a mere 18 miles from the Seamans' two-story Tudor home in Farmington Hills, but it's a universe away from the life Seaman once lived with her husband and two sons.


For one, she will go from being a suburban mom to being just another inmate in a sea of blue uniforms.


http://www.detnews.com/2004/metro/0412/16/A01-34117.htm

Too many inconsistencies. Too many hatchet blows.

And finally Nancy Seaman's own testimony, a version that an Oakland Circuit Court jury found had too many holes and was just too unbelievable to be true.

Those were some of the responses of seven jurors, explaining how they quickly reached a first-degree murder conviction for Seaman, a Farmington Hills grade school teacher who used a hatchet to kill her 57-year-old husband, Robert, following a Mother's Day argument. She contended she had endured 31 years of abuse. Her battered-spouse defense -- used only occasionally in courtrooms -- drew wide public attention.

The jury, which heard six days of testimony, took less than six hours Tuesday to return the verdict against the petite 52-year-old Seaman, who will be sentenced Jan. 24 to mandatory life in prison.

"To keep him wrapped up and bundled in a car ... it went beyond an incident in a garage," said juror Tom Rachfal. "When she laid down on the (courtroom) floor to demonstrate what happened, it seemed it caught her off guard -- like she was doing it for the first time."

Seaman smiled slightly at the jury as the verdict was read. Neither of her two adult sons was present in the courtroom and her attorney Lawrence Kaluzny said that was by design; they chose not to be there.

she has recently been granted a new trial, state was given 120 days to decide if they would retry her otherwise she would have had to be released, they have said that they would retry her, no new trial date has been set

initially the judge decided after the jury had convicted her of 1st degree murder that he would drop her charges down to 2nd degree, state argued against this and her 1st degree conviction was re instated,

I watched the trial from beginning to end, one of her sons says she was abused the other said there was no abuse, I can imagine that one son is happy his mother has a new trial whilst the other is not
I believe she is guilty of 1st degree murder, but she has had along time to perfect her story of abuse, she has had years to prep herself to play the poor abused battered victim again (which I don't think she is) and I think she may get a verdict less than 1st degree

I feel sorry for the victims family, they will now have to go through it all again

I have wondered over the years if her sons ever reconciled, I doubt it, but maybe they did

the female prosecutor who prosecuted her was fantastic, her cross of Nancy was masterful, to get her to reenact the murders for the jury was very powerful, I watched in awe as she asked Nancy how many times did she hit her husband with the hatchet and then made her reenact it to the jury

I am not surprised to see a reversal, I am now much more cynical about the justice system, and think that many have been and will be fooled by Nancys tales, I only hope that 12 more jurors see through her lies, she did not fool the first 12 jurors, they did not believe her oh woe is me stories

I had never heard of this case until I found a book last year at the library (Internal Combustion by Joyce Maynard). Like most true crime books, the story seemed a little slanted, but it was a good read. According to the facts in the book, she appears to be right where she belongs. But if there's new evidence to show otherwise, of course the court should look at it.

http://www.theoaklandpress.com/arti...news/doc50b40365bfc78964918281.txt?viewmode=2

just checked up on status of the case, seems the retrial will not be going ahead and the original verdict stands, I totally agreed with the initial verdict

'I cry everyday': Michigan school teacher who killed her husband in grisly hatchet attack speaks of remorse and torment from jail

Nancy Seaman is serving life in prison for murdering her husband Bob

She killed him in a grisly hatchet attack but says she acted in self defense

The 63-year-old has been speaking from jail where she has spent 11 years

Says there isn't a day that goes by where she doesn't cry for her husband


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...peaks-remorse-torment-jail.html#ixzz43YKEZOW3

A Change.org petition has been launched in the last year for her Clemency.

I personally believe she didn't act in self defence and attacked Bob because she was about to lose her lifestyle.