NAPA - As he strangled his wife, then shot her three times with a high-powered nail gun, Richard Williams felt as if he might have been possessed, he testified in court Friday.

"I was almost manic. I was beside myself," Williams said as he described killing Hendrika "Hetty" Williams to the jury.

"I was this person on auto-pilot," he said.

The trial, which started last week, continued Friday in Napa County Superior Court with Williams' testimony about his life, his marriage to Hetty Williams and how their relationship unraveled over 2004 and 2005.

Williams' lawyer is arguing that the combination of Williams' withdrawal from the anti-depressant Paxil, which allegedly altered his mind, and facing her decision to leave him together drove him to kill.

Defense attorney Stephen Munkelt of Nevada City reminded Williams of a conversation they had had in which they had discussed his state of mind at the time of the killing.

"Do you recall a conversation you had with me where you described (how you felt) as being possessed?" Munkelt said.

"Yes, I said that," Williams replied in a monotone. "I had no control over what was going on. ... I felt like I was in the third person, like I was being directed to do all these steps."

Women jurors - six are on the jury - rarely looked at Williams during his testimony.

Williams, dressed in a casual shirt, said the idea of murdering his estranged wife came to him the previous night as he lay awake in bed, Williams said.

"I may have gotten a couple of hours of sleep," he testified. "I was having feelings like I was going to hurt Hetty."

But Deputy District Attorney Kathryn Francis presented computer logs showing Williams searched on the Internet for stun guns two weeks before the murder.

Preparations made

Williams described how he prepared for his estranged wife's arrival at their Grass Valley home the morning of Oct. 22, 2005: He had removed plastic washers from construction nails using a vice out in his garage, put the loaded nail gun in the bedroom, cut a strip of towel to strangle her with and tucked it into his pocket, then wrote his suicide note.

He shot her three times after strangling her: Once in the back of the head, once in the temple and once in the chest.

He didn't feel anything at the time, Williams testified, wiping Hetty Williams' face and telling her he loved her after he fired the last nail into her chest.

Hetty Williams' relatives and friends in the courtroom quietly gasped and cried as he described the killing.

Throughout six hours of testimony, Williams cried briefly once as he described driving the first nail into his wife's head.

Otherwise, he registered no emotion, responding to attorneys' questions with short, simple answers in a monotone voice.

After shooting her, Williams said, he walked around to the other side of the bed, lied down, shot himself in the abdomen, then tried to shoot himself in the head.

But the nail gun would not fire, so he shot himself in the chest.

He was "scared to death" and "beside myself" as he woke up at a Sacramento-area hospital afterward, Williams testified.

After he was transferred to jail in Nevada County, he asked to see a minister.

"I wanted to see if I still had a chance at salvation," Williams said.



Insurance, cocaine, spending

Several times during Friday's testimony, Williams appeared confused about dates and details such as the number of years that separated him from his wife in age.

Williams operated his own business as a landscaper, and related how his wife was concerned about his lack of workmen's compensation, disability and life insurance.

"I told her it would be very expensive for certain things," and he refused to buy the insurance, Williams said.

Deputy DA Francis presented an e-mail written by Hetty Williams that also revealed she was concerned about Williams' gambling, cocaine use and frivolous spending.



Suicide attempt

In 2004, Hetty Williams "sat me down right after my 50th birthday. She told me she was kind of done asking for these things. She wanted to move on. She said she would no longer sleep in our bed," Williams testified.

She moved to the upstairs bedroom of the couple's home and implied she wasn't coming back, Williams said.

"I didn't understand. I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I didn't agree, and I told her so," Williams said.

"I thought my world was coming to an end, and that's when I attempted suicide," he said.

He drove his truck to the mountains, ran the exhaust into the cab and shut up the windows for three or four minutes, Williams said.

But he couldn't stand the choking, and went back home. He told his wife, went to a psychiatrist and asked to be put on the anti-depressant Paxil for the first time, Williams said.

The couple went to five or six counseling sessions, and Hetty Williams moved back into their bedroom.

She continued counseling, but he stopped, and he stopped taking Paxil after about four months on the drug, Williams testified.

Legal separation,

same house

But Hetty Williams filed for legal separation in July 2005.

"I viewed our life as being manageable. She viewed it as being unmanageable," he said.

Around that same time, she tearfully told him again that the marriage was over and that she would move into the home's basement apartment.

"I still didn't understand why this was happening," Williams testified. "I couldn't see where it was justifiable."

In early August, Williams returned to the psychiatrist, who prescribed Paxil again.

On Sept. 25, Williams said he overheard a telephone conversation his wife was having with a friend, confirming his suspicions that she was romantically involved with another man. An argument ensued, and Hetty Williams' friend called the police.

"I kind of lost it. I didn't know what to do," Williams. "I wrote some nasty words on a piece of paper and called her names."

Then he repeated the words, and apologized to the jury for his language.

The case was moved to Napa County from Nevada County because of pretrial publicity in the unusually gruesome case.

The trial is expected to resume at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Nevada County Superior Court. Psychiatrists called by both attorneys are expected to testify.

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To contact Staff Writer Robyn Moormeister, e-mail robynm@theunion.com or call 477-4236.