The trial for accused murderer Eric McLean, 33, has begun in Knoxville, Tennessee. His case stems from his deathly shooting of an 18 man, Sean Powell, he believed was having an affair with his wife, Erin McLean.
Erin McLean was an English teacher at West High School in Knoxville where Sean Powell was a student. Powell dropped out of school and began an extracurricular relationship with Erin McLean. Although he knew about his wife’s affair for some time, Eric McLean violently confronted Sean Powell at the McLean household in March of 2007. When, after being asked to leave the home, Powell was loitering in the driveway, Eric McLean shot him once in the head with a rifle, killing the teen. Now the courts must decide if the shooting was premeditated murder in the first-degree, or done in the heat of passion which would carry a less serious voluntary manslaughter charge.
Erin McLean, who is now divorced from Eric McLean and her two children, were not at preliminary court hearings but she might be called as a witness to the crime. Jury selection is still underway in the case.
Source: Associated Press