Surprise witness in Sherer trial

REDMOND

It was two weeks ago when Bridget Shipman saw a television broadcast about Steven Sherer's murder trial that the unwelcome memories came flooding back.

Suddenly, she said, she recalled the brief, abusive relationship she had with Sherer nearly 10 years ago, when she was just a high-school girl: How he made her dress in his missing wife's clothes. How she came to look so much like Jami Sherer that his toddler took to calling her "Mommy."

And most importantly, Shipman told a jury yesterday, she vividly remembered the day - less than a year after Jami Sherer vanished - when she questioned a "spot" on the floor in Sherer's Redmond home.

"He told me he had gotten in a fight or an argument with Jami, and I don't know how he did it, but he gave her a bloody nose," Shipman testified. "He said he was sorry it happened."

But Sherer's lawyers sharply criticized the woman, now a 25-year-old mother, for conveniently emerging with damning facts nearly 10 years later.

Shipman's testimony kicked off the third week of the King County Superior Court first-degree-murder trial against Sherer, one that is based strictly on circumstantial evidence. The body of his 26-year-old wife, a popular Microsoft employee, has never been found.

Defense attorneys say Sherer, 38, in no way was involved. They suggest the killer was another man who had participated in a sordid sex threesome with the couple and was launching a separate affair with Jami Sherer when she vanished.

For prosecutors, Shipman's revelations are important: Her testimony advances the prosecution's contention that Sherer was a controlling, abusive husband and lover, who was obsessed with his wife but quickly moved on to other women after her disappearance.

Perhaps more importantly to prosecutors is Shipman's memory of the "spot" at the top of a staircase, which they will return to next week, when a new witness is expected to testify that Sherer once confessed to the crime.

The witness is expected to say that Sherer once demonstrated how he punched his wife at the top of the same stairs, making her nose bleed and accidentally killing her, prosecutors say.

The defense has flatly denied that any such conversation occurred.

Shipman said she had no knowledge of the case against Sherer until she saw a TV-news report when the trial started May 3. Even then, she said, she didn't know what the case was about because her 5-year-old daughter was chattering too loudly to hear the television.

But "I just knew he was on trial for murder," said Shipman, a state worker and youth-sports coach from Olympia. "I know he was capable of anything."

Sherer's lawyer, Peter Mair, immediately objected, and Judge Anthony Wartnik told the jury to disregard that statement.

Shipman said she started dating Sherer in summer 1991. She was a 16-year-old high-school student living in Olympia. He was 29. His wife had been missing since the previous September.

Shipman was about the same size as Jami Sherer, she said, and had similar hair and facial features. Steve Sherer pulled dresses from a suitcase and made her wear them, she said.

"He said they were from her car when she disappeared," Shipman said.

He also often invited Shipman to participate in three-way sex, she testified. She declined. Other witnesses have said Sherer coerced his wife into three-way sex.

Later, Shipman traveled to Disneyland with Sherer, his mother and Steve and Jami Sherer's son. They all had to keep reminding the young boy that Shipman wasn't his "Mommy," Shipman testified.

Sherer was abusive to her on the California trip, she said. When they returned home, "I never wanted to see the man again, and I didn't, until now."

Yesterday, Mair grilled Shipman on why she so recently and suddenly remembered such seemingly important details.

"Things just started fleeting in," Shipman snapped back. "Can you remember things that happened to you nine years ago right off the bat, especially when it's a part of your life you'd like to forget?"