Woman to Stand Trial in Husband’s Slaying

Despite a fervent defense, a woman accused of beating her husband to death with a baseball bat two years ago and then concocting a story about being attacked by a home-invasion robber, was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on the charges.

Jeanie Louise Adair, 38, covered her eyes with her hands as Municipal Judge Paul Metzer said the inconsistencies in her story led him to believe she was involved in the slaying and ordered her held without bail.

The hearing lasted nearly two weeks, with more than a half-dozen officers, family members and other witnesses testifying to the various stories Adair had given and the evidence that contradicts them. Deputy Dist. Atty. Marsh Goldstein presented a circumstantial case, centered on unraveling Adair’s intruder story and showing that none of it was probable or, in some cases, possible.

The most damaging piece of evidence was a telephone call that authorities say Adair made to her lover’s office on Nov. 5, 1996, the day of the slaying. According to the testimony of an office worker and of her lover, the call came at a time when she physically could not have picked up the telephone because she claims to have been bound and gagged by the intruder.

Further, Goldstein said the evidence showed Robert Adair, 40, was reading the mail in the first floor of his townhouse when he was beaten to death by someone he knew.

“There is no other explanation,” he said. Adair’s story, he said, “is an insult to the intelligence.”

He said every piece of evidence at that crime scene, from the tape she was supposed to be tied with, to cash lying in a room, to undisturbed furniture, show her story is a lie.

Adair’s lawyer, Richard Plotin, responded with an unusually vigorous defense for this type of proceeding.

Plotin accused the police of ineptitude and of blindly going after an innocent woman when more likely suspects abounded.

Plotin relied on the testimony of Adair’s orthopedic surgeon, who was also her lover, to claim the slaying was possibly an attempt by Dr. Michael Shapiro’s former wife to “terrorize” Jeanie Adair. He claims she masterminded the attack, down to impersonating Adair in the phone call to Shapiro’s office.

Plotin named two men as possible suspects. Police, however, testified that they had looked into the possibility that those men were involved, but discarded them as suspects because their physiques did not match the attacker’s description and because no evidence tied them to the crime.

Plotin argued that a knee injury would have prevented his client from delivering the fatal, crushing blows to Robert Adair’s skull.

As he described the massive fractures, the mothers of both the defendant and the victim sobbed. Adair patted her eyes and nose with a tissue.

“We’re all very, very sorry that Robert Adair is dead, but we can’t compound it by creating a gross injustice and say she, Jeanie Adair, is responsible,” Plotin said. “She will be exonerated.”