news-record.com

DURHAM (MCT) -- Witness testimony begins today in the trial of a woman charged with killing her former lover's fiancee.

Attorneys took all day Tuesday to select jurors who will decide whether Shannon Crawley, then 27, murdered Denita Smith, a 25-year-old N.C. Central University graduate, three years ago.

Smith was engaged to Greensboro police officerJermeir Jackson-Stroud.

In a pretrial hearing Monday, Durham police investigators testified that Jackson-Stroud and Crawley were neighbors and had a sexual relationship from the end of 2004 to the beginning of 2006. Crawley was a Guilford County 911 dispatcher at the time.

A year after the couple broke up, Smith was found dead, shot in the head at the bottom of a staircase at Campus Crossings Apartments.

Superior Court Judge Ronald Stephens will rule this morning on a defense motion to keep investigators from testifying on what Crawley told them about her relationship with Jackson-Stroud, including an abortion a month before they broke up.

Stephens will also rule on a separate defense motion aimed at suppressing evidence that Crawley accused Jackson-Stroud of raping her in Mecklenburg County in June 2008, 18 months after the slaying.

Opening statements are likely to begin around midday.

A witness reported seeing a burgundy Ford Explorer and a woman matching Crawley's description at the apartments shortly after gunfire was heard the morning of Jan. 4, 2007, according to police. A warrant to search Crawley's home and car indicated that Jackson-Stroud told police the defendant had such a vehicle and had "stalked him for a while."

While investigators spoke with Crawley in Greensboro, other officers took pictures of her Ford Explorer and worked to confirm it was the same one seen at Smith's apartment complex, Durham police investigator Shawn Pate testified.