LAKEPORT A Nevada man”s trial for the murder of his ex-girlfriend four years ago entered its fifth day Wednesday, bringing to the stand the woman in whose home he allegedly committed the homicide.
When the prosecution began presenting its case last week, Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff told the court that he intended to prove that Paul Smiraglia, 46, of Reno tortured and murdered former Upper Lake resident Diedre Coleman, 43, in July 2002.
Hinchcliff so far has often alluded to Sharmon Hawley, a friend of both Smiraglia and Coleman whose home they stayed at in July 2002. It was in her home that Hinchcliff alleges Coleman died sometime between July 4 and Aug. 15 of that summer.
Hawley took the stand by mid-morning, following two other witnesses, including Deputy Dave Perry of the Lake County Sheriff”s Office, who in December 2002 and early in 2003 investigated Coleman”s disappearance. The sheriff”s department, Perry explained, handed the case off to the Clearlake Police Department early in 2003.
“Everything indicat-ed that this crime probably happened in the city of Clearlake.”
After Perry, Hinchcliff called Hawley to testify. Dressed in black, Hawley took the stand accompanied by a Victim Witness advocate, who sat beside her to offer moral support.
Hawley appeared genuinely frightened at being in the same room as Smiraglia. She was agitated, and often wrung her hands or crossed her arms tightly across her chest in an almost defensive posture. She appeared flustered when the prosecution, defense and the judge all asked her to speak more slowly and not to jump ahead of Hinchcliff”s questions.
On the stand for close to three and a half hours Wednesday, Hawley answered a long line of questions from Hinchcliff about how she came to know Coleman and Smiraglia in the late spring and summer of 2002.
Thus far, many of the witnesses in the trial have referred to Hawley as being the other woman who caused Smiraglia and Coleman to break up. However, at no time in her testimony Wednesday did Hawley refer to any romantic relationship with Smiraglia.
Indeed, as she recounted it, Hawley seemed to have genuine affection for Coleman who she called her “guardian angel” and began to cry when Hinchcliff asked her to identify Coleman in a picture.
Hawley like many of the other witnesses so far, as well as Coleman and Smiraglia belonged at one point to a methamphetamine-fueled subculture in Clearlake. As she recounted it, some of her “friends” including individuals who have so far testified stole from her and took advantage of her.
Coleman, however, “wanted to watch out for me,” said Hawley.
So, when Coleman and Smiraglia needed a place to stay in July 2002, Hawley obliged, because Coleman promised to keep an eye on her house when she was away during the day.
Coleman, Hawley recounted, told her that Smiraglia was on the run from criminal charges in Nevada. They planned to manufacture methamphetamine for sale, which Coleman told Hawley would help fund a trip to another area, although Coleman never told Hawley where they were headed next.
But the batch of meth critical to their next trip didn”t get manufactured, said Hawley, and the couple began to argue all the time, accusing each other of not “doing their part.”
Hawley testified about she and Smiraglia”s Aug. 15, 2002 arrest on drug and weapons charges in Clearlake. Smiraglia was found with a sawed-off shotgun and a variety of meth manufacturing materials, while Hawley had a glass pipe and meth.
She admitted on Wednesday to knowing about the shotgun, but said she was shocked when police opened the trunk of her car.
“He had my trunk packed as if we were never coming back,” she said. “I think it saved my life to get arrested. I know it saved my life.”
She added that she believes he was going to kill her as well.
Last month, on May 24 and 25, Hawley provided investigators with more information in the case, specifically, that she was present the night Coleman died. She had held back the truth, she said, out of fear for herself and her family because of past threats from Smiraglia.
But she finally felt safer, she said, and “I wanted to do it for Diedre & it was haunting me so bad.”
Returning from a trip to Reno in the middle of the night in the summer of 2002, Hawley recounted going to bed on the couch in the living room. She could hear Smiraglia and Coleman talking in the other room. Later, however, she awoke to hear them arguing.
She said their voices gradually became louder as they fought over the meth not being made and not having enough money to get Smiraglia out of town. Coleman, she said, sounded very angry, and Smiraglia who sounded amused at first also grew angrier, and told Coleman to shut up.
Hawley said she fell back asleep a few times, only to be startled awake as the arguing continued. She said she warned them to be quiet and not upset the neighbors, but the arguing continued.
Falling asleep again, Hawley was again awakened, this time by her dog, Buddy, who was growling and barking, and running back and forth between the bedroom and her spot on the couch. The argument in the other room was escalating, she said.
Smiraglia came out of the room several times, running up and down the hallway to the kitchen, Hawley said. She said she heard Coleman tell Smiraglia to “stop” and “leave me alone!” and heard thumping around. Smiraglia, she said, told Coleman he would make her shut up.
Not long after, Hawley said she heard Coleman yelling, “No! No! No!”
“I can hear her saying, Shara, help me! Shara!”” Hawley said, becoming almost hysterical as she remembered it.
She said she was trying to think of how to get out of the house and away from Smiraglia, but knew she couldn”t get away.
Then he came out of the bedroom and asked her for a hammer. She asked why he needed one. He went back into the bedroom and she could hear more thumping.
Hawley said, “I still heard Diedre”s voice calling for help after he asked for the hammer,” but her voice was getting lower and lower.
“I was scared to death he was going to kill me, too,” she said.
Eventually, she said, the voices in the bedroom stopped, and Smiraglia emerged to say he was sorry, that “he didn”t mean for it to go that far.”
He told Hawley that he made a mess and “for me not to go back there.”
Smiraglia wrapped Coleman”s body in a blue tarp and tied it with rope. He then had Hawley help him lift Coleman into a large plastic tub used for toys that sat in the living room. That”s where the body would remain for the next day and a half, Hawley said.
In the meantime, Smiraglia told her the house would have to be burned down and that they needed to dump the body. And she said he told her that she was his partner now whether she liked it or not.
As the court day was drawing to a close, Hinchclif showed Hawley a photograph titled People”s Exhibit No. 7 and asked her to identify what it showed.
Hawley, who had been momentarily composed, broke down again, saying it was a photo of “what was in the toy box.”
Hawley”s testimony will continue today at 9 a.m. in Judge Arthur Mann”s court.
Contact Elizabeth Larson at elarson@record-bee.com.
