Trial for Deer Park man accused of killing wife begins

Shannon Ayers died of a gunshot to the head about three years ago inside her Deer Park home.

Now it’s up to a Spokane County jury to decide whether she died by suicide, or, as prosecutors allege, her husband, Dean Ayers, pulled the trigger.

Dean Ayers, who sat next to his attorney in a gray dress shirt and pants, faces second-degree murder in his 58-year-old wife’s death.

Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor Tom Treppiedi told jurors Thursday morning the facts are relatively straightforward.

“Dean Ayers was at home with his wife that night,” Treppiedi said. “There was an argument, Mr. Ayers armed himself with his weapon, his pistol, and he shot his wife in the head.”

According to court documents, Dean Ayers called 911 at 11 p.m. Jan. 18, 2022, to report his wife shot herself.

Deputies responded to the couple’s home at 28903 N. Perry Road to find Dean Ayers in a bedroom standing next to his wife.

Shannon Ayers was holding a 9mm semiautomatic pistol in her right hand. She was still breathing when medical crews began treating her. She died at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center early the next morning.

Dean Ayers, now 58, told deputies he and his wife had been arguing just before she shot herself with the pistol he keeps under his pillow. Dean Ayers said he was in bed when she shot herself, then he got out of bed and went around to his wife’s side. He told deputies he did not move the gun, according to court documents.

The morning after the shooting, police said another detective interviewed Dean Ayers, who said his wife shot herself as he was returning to bed from a trip to the bathroom. He said he removed the gun from his wife’s hand but didn’t remember where he put it, a different story than the one he told police the night before, according to documents.

Ayers said he called his parents before calling 911 because he didn’t know what to do and couldn’t find 911 on his phone, documents say.

An autopsy of Shannon Ayers revealed the bullet entered her head on the left side and exited on the right. The gun was held between 8 and 12 inches from the wife’s head when it was fired, according to findings by the medical examiner in court documents.

Graphic photos of Shannon Ayers’ gunshot wounds were displayed during Spokane County deputy medical examiner Makinzie Mott’s testimony Thursday afternoon.

Mott said Shannon Ayers died from a gunshot wound to the head and ruled the death a homicide.

She testified the wounds “would have been extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible” to be self-inflicted.

Treppiedi said a firearms expert determined the gun fired that night was held at an “intermediate distance” from Shannon Ayers.

Deputies concluded Shannon Ayers couldn’t have shot herself in the left side of her head with her right hand, which was her dominant hand, court records say.

Dean Ayers’ defense attorney, Douglas Phelps, told the jury Shannon Ayers contacted family members at times suggesting she was contemplating suicide. Phelps said Shannon Ayers never recovered from the loss of her son, who died in a motorcycle crash.

Friends and family of Shannon Ayers told the sheriff’s office Dean Ayers had an affair during the marriage and the couple argued frequently, but she was not suicidal, documents say.

Treppiedi said Shannon Ayers was planning on leaving her husband before her death.

On the night of the shooting, Phelps said his client had gone to the bathroom and heard a loud bang when he came back to the bedroom.

“He was alarmed by that and surprised by that,” Phelps said.

Phelps said investigators did not find Dean Ayers’ fingerprints on the pistol.

“He maintains his wife was emotional and shot herself in the head,” Phelps said.

Shannon Ayers’ daughter, Brandi Campbell, testified that her mother liked to spend time with her family, including camping, four-wheeling and visiting the family cabin on the lake. She was active in her grandchildren’s lives, said Campbell, who wore her dark blue U.S. Navy uniform Thursday.

Campbell told the jury she communicated with her mother on a daily basis. She never made suicidal comments, Campbell said.

She said she last spoke with her mother the day of the killing. They were talking about how Shannon Ayers started going back to marriage counseling, which was going well.

“I said, ‘Call me back when you get home, and she said, ‘OK.’ And she never did,” Campbell said.

Many of the questions directed at Campbell and Kandice Kambitsch, Shannon Ayers’ younger sister, revolved around text message conversations the two women had with Shannon Ayers a couple of weeks before her death.

The two said they were concerned about Shannon Ayers, but did not believe she was going to harm herself.

Kambitsch said her sister was outgoing and happy.

“Shannon was always a very strong person,” Kambitsch said.

Kambitsch said she received a phone call from Campbell a couple of weeks before her death saying she was concerned about a text message Shannon Ayers sent Campbell. Kambitsch said she sent her sister a screenshot of suicide and crisis hotline numbers.

Still, Kambitsch said she was not worried about her sister harming herself and thought the text conversation between Shannon Ayers and Campbell was nothing more than about a fight between the Ayers couple.

Kambitsch said her sister texted her she was fine. The text thread between the two sisters was displayed on a projector in the courtroom.

Several supporters of Dean and Shannon Ayers watched Thursday’s proceedings.

The trial resumes Monday morning with Spokane County Superior Court Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren presiding.