Texas Jury Clears Woman in Fatal Shooting of Estranged Husband

A Texas woman charged with the murder of her estranged husband in 2023 has been acquitted of all charges in the shooting after she and her attorney argued that she was acting in self-defense.

Cassandra Harris and her common-law husband Ricky Ellis, had been arguing about Ellis moving out of the home in April, 2023, when Harris said the dispute escalated to the point that she tried to retreat to a locked bedroom to get away from him.

During the trial, jurors watched the in-custody videos of Harris conducted by Hallsville police investigator David Burrows.

Harris told officers the day of the shooting Ellis was in a “funky” mood that ultimately led to a verbal argument about him having to leave the home as he previously agreed to. The day of the shooting, he came to the residence, refusing to leave unless she took him to court to be evicted. At some point, she said she felt threatened when he reportedly told her if he couldn’t have her, no one could.

At the advice from a friend on the phone, Harris went to her key-padded master bedroom. She told police that to secure secure herself, she had taken the mattress from her bed in the master bedroom and placed it against the door of the bathroom. She additionally took a shotgun, pistol and Taser to the bathroom with her. She locked the master bedroom and master bathroom doors.

Harris told police that she could hear Ellis entering the master bedroom, and as she yelled for him to get out, she could hear him fumbling with the master bathroom door. Upon breaking into the bathroom door, she shot him. She said she shot him a second time when he seemingly stepped back into the bathroom to charge at her.

Ellis was found on his back with his feet toward the master bathroom door. Harris told police she didn’t know what Ellis was planning to do. She said she didn’t mean to kill him but just wanted him away from her.

Burrows said based on his investigation, he believed murder was the proper charge in this case since deadly force in the form of a firearm was used.

This is a good reminder to wait until your attorney is present before talking to police if you’re ever involved in a self-defense shooting. No matter how cooperative you might want to be, no matter how justified your actions, you’re likely going to be in shock and won’t necessarily be thinking clearly. Harris took reasonable steps to protect herself from Ellis long before she shot him, but when she said she didn’t know what Ellis was planning to do and that she didn’t want to kill him she opened herself up to an argument that she was not acting out of a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm. 

Prosecutor John Moore, for instance, asked jurors during his closing argument to consider why she didn’t use her Taser instead of her pistol.

“She told 911, if he moves again, I’m gonna shoot him. I just want him to leave,” Moore said, recounting Harris’ call as she sat in her bathroom listening to Ellis at her door.

“Well, if you want him to leave, why are you gonna shoot him again?” Moore said.

He said Harris shot three times, with one missing, one going into Ellis’ leg and the other going through his shoulder to his heart.

“To get to self defense, you must find that she was threatened by deadly force,” Moore said.

“He doesn’t kick on (the door),” Moore said of Ellis. “You don’t see a footprint on it.”

“She said: ‘I made a really bad decision, and I need to get out of it.’ And she did. She got out of it,” Moore said.

On the other hand, she had retreated to her locked master bedroom and then to the en-suite bathroom. While there might not have been a footprint on the bathroom door, Ellis apparently was able to get into both locked rooms somehow. She was scared, her defense attorney Kyle Dansby told the jury, and she couldn’t wait around for police to save her. 

Dansby said even after Harris’ call to 911 to report the shooting, it took officers a long time to respond.

“That is why the law says you have the right to defend ourselves because in those moments, you can’t wait for one guy (to respond),” Dansby said.

“He’s strong,” he said, referring to testimony of Ellis carrying a refrigerator up 30 flights of stairs.

“He’s angry. He comes home wanting to pick a fight,” Dansby said.

At some point, “(Ellis) says if I can’t have you nobody else can have you, and that precipitates her move into the bathroom. When he walks into that darkened room, he sees a mattress gone. He can see she doesn’t want you there, because at this point this is not a conversation. She has said stop, go away. He enters one bedroom — that’s not his right. Then he uses force to break a door. When she sees no other option, she fires and does what she has to do and call 911.

“She had to shoot a guy, unfortunately, and she had to beg the police to get here, and they still don’t get there, and she doesn’t know if he’s dead or alive,” Dansby said.

Based on the reporting from the local paper the decision to charge Harris with murder seems questionable to begin with, but it sounds like the jury made the right call after considering all the evidence. As Dansby told reporters after the verdict was announced, this was a tragedy. But it also could have been avoided if Ellis decided to walk away instead of pursuing his estranged with through two locked doors. At that point, I believe that Harris did have a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm, and it sounds like the jury in Harrison County, Texas felt the same.