Woman Who Allegedly Shot Husband To Appear In Court

GOLDEN, CO – An Evergreen woman accused of shooting her husband with his own gun through a closet door will have a court hearing in Jefferson County District Court.

Julie Ann Bird, 59, is charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault, domestic violence and prohibited use of a weapon in the shooting of her husband the evening after July 4. Bird is scheduled to appear in court Sept. 24.

Officers came to the family townhouse around 12:45 a.m. July 5 in the 2300 block of Columbine Lane and found Bird's husband sitting against a tree, a police affidavit said. He was bleeding and appeared to have gunshot wounds.

"My wife shot me in the back," he told police, explaining that she had used a .38 caliber handgun. He began to lose consciousness and was rushed to St. Anthony's Hospital, the affidavit said. Bird had been arrested before for domestic violence after a fight with her husband on Easter, 2017, the police reports said.

Police found Bird hiding under a covered picnic table outside Hiwan Golf Course and Country Club. A handgun was recovered from a planter nearby. When officers asked what she was doing in the area, Bird said, "that's obvious," the affidavit said. Officers noted in the arrest report that Bird was unsteady on her feet and her breath smelled like alcohol. Bird complained of chest pains, and was taken to a hospital for evaluation.

Bird's husband told police she had been drinking alcohol all day on the 4th of July, and had had an argument with a neighbor. The husband told police he went to bed, but was awaked by a pounding sound because she had locked herself out of the house. When he let her in, she "exploded" and punched and attacked him, he said.

He told investigators she had previously been married to a federal agent and "she believed she [herself] was a federal agent, part of a physiological operations team." As she beat him, she told her husband her career had been ruined by the previous domestic violence arrest, he said.

The husband told police he hid in the closet and texted neighbors and her therapist for help, but it was after midnight and no one answered.

The husband told police he had three handguns hidden in the home, and his wife knew that a Smith and Wesson .38 caliber five-shot revolver was kept, loaded, inside the living room sofa cushions.

As he hid in the closet, he told police he heard his wife say, "If I shoot through the door will I kill you?" Then a round was fired through the door and a bullet struck him in the back, he said. He called 911 and rushed past his wife out of the house. He told police he saw her leave into the woods.

Medical personnel told police the bullet had "come through his body and broken the skin but was still in the wound."

Bird was taken into custody July 5 and a $50,000 bond was set.

Image via Jefferson County District Attorney

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