A jilted lover on trial for shooting her boyfriend in the face claims she killed him in self defense after their abusive relationship broke down.
Shayna Hubers is accused of ‘cackling’ as she shot attorney Ryan Poston six times just before he was due to meet Miss Ohio 2012 Audrey Bolte for a date.
The 27-year-old testified at her trial on Thursday she killed him in his penthouse in Cleveland on October 12, 2012, because she ‘feared him’.
That was soon after he demanded she talk 25 per cent less, get a hobby, and have threesomes with him and other women if they were to get back together.
Hubers recounted how they went on their first date on her 20th birthday in April 2011 after meeting on Facebook months earlier.
She said even then she was rattled by his physicality and how forward he was and called a taxi from the bathroom of a bar to get away.
Shayna Hubers, 27, cried in court on Tuesday (pictured) during her retrial for allegedly murdering her boyfriend Ryan Poston after he started dating a beauty queen
‘I remember thinking that he had a strong personality. I feared him. I felt like I need to do what he was telling me to do,’ she said, according to Fox 19.
However, they kept dating on and off and often had rough sex when drunk, and everything went downhill when she refused to do a sexual act in 2012.
‘It felt degrading… I didn’t know if I trusted him… I feared him,’ she said.
Hubers also said he was ‘callous’ when she told him she was sexually assaulted by a stranger in a restroom in 2007 and molested by her father.
She claimed Mr Poston once threw her out of the window of his condominium in the spring of 2012, repeatedly slammed the door on her body when she tried to get back in, and then threw her keys and purse at her.
Hubers admitted that she was also violent with him as their fights escalated over the course of the year.
‘I smacked or hit him in the face around his mouth. He shoved me, he shoved me back,’ she said.
The pair tried to get back together about a month before the murder, but Mr Poston had conditions that would drastically change their relationship.
‘He wanted me to be his incognito girlfriend and he wanted me to talk 25 percent less, he always said I talked too much,’ Hubers testified.
‘And he wanted me to get a hobby while I was at his condo and he wanted me to also to agree to have threesomes with other girls.’
Hubers will speak about the day of the murder and events leading up to it when the trial resumed on Friday.
The court earlier heard that according to her cellmates, she boasted in jail that she gave Poston the ‘nose job he always wanted’ afterwards and cackled once he was dead.
Their testimony was similar to that heard at her first trial in 2015, which found her guilty of murder only for the verdict to be thrown out because one of the jurors had a prior felony conviction.
Hubers allegedly shot Poston six times – including once in the face – at his penthouse apartment in Ohio. They are pictured together in an undated image
Donna Dooley, Holly Nivens, and Cecily Miller all told the court Hubers still showed no remorse for the killing, Cincinnati.com reported. Miller said she once cracked a joke about having given him ‘the nose job he had always wanted’.
The former University of Kentucky psychology major, who was 21 at the time, broke down crying during a recess on Tuesday before hugging one of her attorneys.
It was the most emotion she had shown in a courtroom, where she usually sits stony-faced while flashing the occasional smile at relatives she recognizes.
Hubers’ cellmates presented the defendant as an unrepentant murder who still believed she was right to kill Poston for dumping her for Bolte, now 29, and also a former Miss USA.
Nivens said she overheard Hubers on the phone to her mother saying Poston’s family was rich enough to buy another son.
Poston died shortly before due to meet Miss USA and Miss Ohio 2012 runner-up Audrey Bolte for a date on October 12 of that year. She is pictured at Miss USA in Las Vegas on June 3, 2012 (left) and in New York City on September 7 of that year
‘She would get on the phone and cry and sing to her mom and say there’s worse crimes than murder,’ Dooley said of the defendant.
Miller said Hubers would regularly talk about Poston in jail and joked that he was so vain he would be grateful for having been given ‘the nose job he always wanted’.
The prosecution also summoned a forensics expert, who said Poston had been shot first in the forehead, twice in the back from three feet away while still seated, and a further three times in his torso from the same distance while he lay on the floor.
Details about the dysfunctional relationship between Hubers and Poston where heard in court on Monday.
Highland Heights Police Chief Bill Birkenhauer said Hubers would log onto Poston’s Facebook and blocked women. He also said Hubers bombarded Poston with a hundred texts for every one he send after one of their regular break-ups.
Texts Birkenhauer read to the jury included several from a phone number that was not in his contacts which insulted his ability as a lawyer and accused him of lacking in sexual prowess. The number was later revealed as that of a female friend Hubers lived with.
‘Lose the beer gut and get better at your job,’ was one of the messages read out in court, according to Cincinnati.com.
Details about the dysfunctional relationship between Hubers (left) and Poston (right) where heard in court on Monday. Photos undated
Hubers is pictured watching a court hearing in 2015. The guilty verdict reached at that trial was thrown out because a juror was found to have had a previous conviction
This was found as a screenshot on Hubers phone alongside a text sent from the device saying ‘I texted Ryan this from a friend’s phone’.
After the first trial, Hubers was sentenced to 40 years in prison without the opportunity for early parole on account of showing no remorse. Campbell County Circuit Judge Fred Stine branded the killing ‘as cold-blooded an act as I’ve seen’.
A retrial was ordered after it emerged that Dave Craig, 53, who had served as a juror, had a criminal past.
Proceedings have been constantly interrupted by a loud noise from courtroom speakers intended to hide discussions between attorneys and the judge from the jury.
On Wednesday, the judge threw out a defense request to have the latest proceedings also declared a mistrial after prosecution witnesses referenced the earlier trial.
David Eldridge requested the mistrial after two witnesses called by the prosecution referenced the prior trial, which was thrown out after it was found a juror had a prior felony conviction.