In the late summer of 2007, a mother's concern for her son, Rusty Riggins, led to a grim discovery in the quiet city of Flagstaff, Arizona. After not hearing from him, she contacted the police on August 7th, asking them to check on him at the home he was house-sitting while navigating a divorce. When officers arrived at the residence, they found the male victim deceased, having been shot in the back with a.
22 caliber handgun.
The investigation quickly focused on Rusty's estranged wife, Jessica Riggins. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, she had vanished, along with a car she had borrowed from Rusty's mother. Her movements were traced to California, where she visited her ex-husband and son before crossing the border into Mexico. This escape, however, was short-lived. About a week later, Jessica was apprehended as she attempted to re-enter the United States and was subsequently arrested for the murder of her husband.
During her trial in February 2009, the prosecution painted a picture of a calculated crime motivated by money. They argued that Jessica, who was 41 at the time, had killed her husband to gain access to a significant sum of money, believing that his death would resolve their financial disputes in her favor, especially with a divorce hearing scheduled for that same week. To support this, they presented evidence that she had purchased the handgun just two days before the murder.
Jessica's defense team offered a starkly different narrative, one of a battered woman acting in self-defense. They maintained that the shooting was the tragic culmination of a volatile relationship marked by domestic violence, for which Rusty had prior convictions. Jessica claimed that on the day of the incident, her husband had attacked her, and the gun had gone off accidentally as she tried to protect herself. However, the location of the gunshot wound in his back presented a significant challenge to this claim.
Ultimately, the jury sided with the prosecution. Jessica Riggins was found guilty of first-degree murder, as well as auto theft and two counts of credit card theft. While the judge acknowledged the history of domestic violence, noting that he believed Jessica had been a 'long time victim,' he sentenced her to life in prison with the possibility of parole after twenty-five years.
