Inset: Marisol Solis Zamora (KRIV). Background: The home where Miguel Zamora Martinez was killed (KRIV).
A Texas woman facing charges in the death of her husband over the weekend allegedly claimed the gun accidentally went off when he drunkenly bumped into her as she was helping him into the house.
Marisol Solis Zamora, 42, faces a murder charge in the death of Miguel Zamora Martinez, 47, authorities said.
The bloodshed happened on Saturday around 11 p.m. on Lone Oak Road in Houston. The defendant’s children heard two gunshots and saw her holding the firearm near the body, court documents said. Deputies found his lifeless body in the driveway, authorities said.
The defendant initially said it was self-defense, then told police it was an accident, according to details that came out during the defendant’s probable cause hearing, Damali Keith from local Fox affiliate KRIV reported.
At the hearing, Zamora’s court-appointed defense attorney said she was helping her husband as he was “drunkenly trying to stumble from the car to the home, and that the gun accidentally discharged … as he bumped against her.”
“The possibility of this being an accident is also buttressed by one of the teenage kids who indicated that the weapon was sort of jammed, or there appeared to be some kind of malfunction with the weapon itself,” the lawyer added.
The lawyer said nobody is alleged to have seen what happened and that the couple’s three teenage children, who were home at the time, didn’t allege they heard an argument. Marisol Zimora herself allegedly told police there wasn’t an argument, the lawyer said.
In a news release, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said her account of how her husband suffered his injuries, “did not align with the physical evidence at the scene.”
Zamora has no criminal history and was set to begin training as a paralegal, her lawyer said in the court hearing.
Neighbors were shocked.
“I heard just a loud noise,” one told KRIV. “Then we started hearing screaming and crying. He was lying right there by the trash cans. It was very traumatic.”
Marisol Zamora is being held at the Harris County Jail with bail set at $100,000, online records show. She’s set to appear in court on Dec. 16.
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