Danielle Redlick: Woman claims she killed stepfather turned husband in self defence
‘He was suffocating me. I couldn’t breathe and he had me pinned down’
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A Florida woman accused of murdering her husband and former stepfather took the stand to testify she feared for her life when she stabbed him to death.
Danielle Redlick, 48, says she acted in self-defence when she plunged a knife into 65-year-old Mike Redlick’s left shoulder during a fight at their home in Winter Park, near Orlando, in January 2019.
“He was suffocating me. I couldn’t breathe and he had me pinned down,” Ms Redlick told the court, according to WESH-2.
“I was scared — I was in fear for my life. I thought he had snapped, and I could die.”
Mr Redlick, a former NBA executive, was found lying in a pool of blood on the floor of the couple’s kitchen in a scene prosecutors have said resembled a “horror movie”.
Investigators said Ms Redlick waited for hours to call 911 and initially claimed that her husband had suffered a heart attack.
She later said Mr Redlick had stabbed himself, before claiming self-defence.
Ms Redlick earlier told the court she met Mr Redlick at the age of 22 when he was married to her mother.
After her mother died, they became involved romantically and were married in around 2004.
She said he had purchased them a dream home in Memphis after moving there from Cleveland for work.
According to Ms Redlick, her husband began hitting her when he would drink or was angry about work from early on in the relationship.
“At this point, he raised his fists and he just crossed me in the face. And I felt like he had taken every frustration he had that week on me,” she said, according to WESH-2.
The court also heard evidence from a medical examiner who testified that the fatal stab wound went so deep that it hit an artery and punctured a lung.
The couple’s two children are expected to testify at the trial.
Ms Redlick faces a potential life term if convicted of murder, after she rejected an offer to plead guilty to manslaughter.