Calculated murder attempt or self defense?

One of the lawyers representing a Town of Grafton man accused of shooting his wife four times after carrying her to their bedroom and throwing her to the floor on the day she filed for divorce last year gave a vastly different account of the shooting as the attempted first-degree intentional homicide trial began in Ozaukee County Circuit Court Tuesday.

“The evidence will show he fired in self defense,” attorney Benjamin Lutgen told the jury of eight men and four women during his opening argument, referring to his client, 54-year-old Guy J. Paider, who in addition to attempted homicide faces a charge of first-degree reckless injury. Both charges carry an enhancer because Paider is accused of committing the crimes with a dangerous weapon.

“At some point, Ms. Paider made Mr. Paider think she had a firearm and was going to use it,” Lutgen said. “Mr. Paider had no choice but to fire at Ms. Paider. He was backed into a corner.”

No gun other than the one Paider is accused of using to shoot his wife was found in the bedroom.

Ozaukee County District Attorney Benjamin Lindsay, however, told the jury that Paider began badgering his wife about their divorce as soon as she came home, then grabbed her, carried her to their bedroom and threw her to the floor.

“She screamed for her 12-year-old daughter to call 911,” Lindsay said. “They (officers) found the 12-year-old daughter out in front of the house crying.”

In the couple’s bedroom, Paider retrieved a handgun from his underwear drawer, where he usually does not keep a gun, Lindsay said.

“Over and over he told her that she had to look at him, that she had to watch him shoot her,” he said, adding that Paider suggested they have sex one more time before he killed her.

As officers kicked in the locked bedroom door, Paider shot his wife four times, hitting her in the abdomen, groin, thigh and buttock, Lindsay said. She was taken by ambulance to Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, then flown by a Flight for Life helicopter to Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa, where she underwent emergency surgery to repair a lacerated artery and damage to her small bowel, a significant portion of which had to be removed, he said.

Shirley Paider was in court Monday and was scheduled to testify later in the trial. 

According to a criminal complaint, authorities were called to the Paider’s home off Highway C south of Stonecroft Drive and north of Lion’s Den Gorge Nature Preserve at 3:50 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24, by the couple’s daughter, who reported a fight between her parents.

Although the house is in the Town of Grafton, Ozaukee County sheriff’s deputies weren’t in the area so officer Patrick Brock and Sgt. Noah Eernisse of the Grafton Police Department responded and were let into the home by the girl, who reported that her mother told her to call 911 and her father told her to get out of the house, the complaint states.

The officers noticed signs of a struggle in the kitchen, and after announcing their presence heard a woman screaming in a back bedroom.

The door to that room was locked, so Brock kicked it in and told the people inside to come out with their hands up. That is when Brock heard multiple gunshots. 

Believing the shots were being fired at them, Brock and Eernisse retreated down the hallway and again ordered the people in the bedroom to show their hands. Paider announced he was coming out of the room with his hands raised, then surrendered to the officers, according to the complaint.

Eernisse went into the bedroom to find Mrs. Paider on the bed shot multiple times and a Kimber 1911 semi-automatic handgun with a bullet in the chamber and two in the seven-round magazine. 

Three days after the shooting, Mrs. Paider told detectives from the Sheriff’s Office, who interviewed her in her hospital room, that after meeting with her lawyer regarding her divorce on Friday, she went home to find her husband and their daughter cooking in the kitchen. She said her husband repeatedly asked her what she wanted in the divorce and she said she didn’t want to talk about it front of their daughter, according to the complaint.

She said Paider sent their daughter to her bedroom, then came up behind her, grabbed her by both arms and threw her to the floor. She said she hit her head and began yelling for her daughter to call 911.

Paider then covered her mouth, picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, where he threw her to the floor again. She said she covered her face with her hands and began screaming “no, no,” then opened her eyes to see Paider retrieving his gun from the underwear drawer of his dresser, according to the complaint.

She said Paider told her, “Look at me. Look at me so you can see me when I shoot you” as she pleaded with him not to shoot, the complaint states.

She said she was covering her face with a pillow when Paider again demanded she look at him and said, “You called the sheriff. They are here. That’s what you wanted.” Then, she said, Paider shot her, the complaint states.

Lutgen, however, told the jury Monday that Paider and his wife went to their bedroom on Oct. 24 to discuss their divorce, something they had been planning for some time. In fact, Lutgen said, Paider had already begun moving his belongings out of the house.

“Guy was acting calm and trying to diffuse the situation,” he said.

But at some point, Paider’s wife convinced him she had a gun, and when officers kicked in their bedroom door, Paider thought she had shot at him and fired his gun, Lutgen said. 

“This case is about a sudden, chaotic moment that happened in that bedroom,” he told the jury.

Lutgen noted that the Paiders kept many guns in their house and Mrs. Paider is an experienced hunter, as is her husband, who is also a competitive marksman.

A petition for the return of property seized by authorities after the shooting filed by Mrs. Paider in September includes a list of 18 guns taken from a large gun safe in the couple’s basement. Those firearms range from hunting rifles and a Colt Defense rifle with a bump stock to a Smith & Wesson Model 500, advertised by the manufacturer as the most powerful production handgun in the world.

Paider is a former longtime member of the West Allis Fire Department. According to the department’s 2022 annual report, he worked for the department for more than 26 years and served as its battalion chief. He also worked as a nurse with emergency room experience and served as an EMT-paramedic instructor at Milwaukee Area Technical College. 

In addition, Paider served as the town representative on the Grafton Public Safety Committee for a short time last year. 

Paider is being held in the county jail in lieu of $3 million. 

His trial was scheduled to continue through Thursday, but Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Adam Gerol told jurors Monday that testimony could be wrapped up by as early as the end of that day.