Medford Woman Arraigned on Murder Charge

A Medford woman charged with murdering her husband at their Exchange Avenue home was arraigned in Superior Court Monday, prosecutors said.

Shawntina Burston, 39, of Medford, will remain jailed after being ordered held without bail by Judge Jane Haggerty during the arraignment, according to a press release from District Attorney Gerry Leone. Burston is charged with first degree murder.

Burston was previously ordered held without bail by a district court judge on Jan. 31, two days after she allegedly fatally stabbed Troy Burston, father of their two children, following a heated argument and struggle at their home on Exchange Avenue.

Burston allegedly planted a kitchen knife in her husband's upper-left chest that night while the couples' two children slept upstairs.

Burston allegedly confessed to the crime almost immediately, telling Medford Police Officer Lee Enos that "it was self-defense, he was choking me and hitting me," according to a police affidavit. She initially told police she blacked out during the incident and couldn't remember what she used to stab him, but eventually confessed further details of the killing, police said.

The tip of a knife was found the couples' living room, and police spotted the body of the knife in plain view in a rubbish barrel, according to the affidavit.

The couple began arguing at a birthday party Sunday, and it escalated when they returned home to 108 Exchange Ave. Sunday, Assistant District Attorney John Verner said during a January arraignment. The argument began in the couples' bedroom, and moved through the kitchen and living room, at some point becoming physical, Verner said.

During the argument, Burston tore her husband's shirt off and found a hickey on his chest, Verner previously said.

"That continued to inflame the defendant," Verner said at the arraignment.

She spotted the knife near the sink in the kitchen while they were arguing, and swung it at her husband, according to the affidavit. She told police she didn't intend to strike him with it, and was only trying to scare him.

The couples' two daughters, ages 3 and 6, were upstairs sleeping at the time of the incident, police said.

When Medford police were called to 108 Exchange Ave. at about 10:40 p.m. on Jan. 29 they found Troy Burston lying in the snow outside shirtless with a stab wound to his chest, prosecutors said. He was transported to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.

A next door neighbor said they saw Troy Burston lying in the snow outside with his wife on top of him, screaming at him to "stop it" and "get up," Verner said.

Burston has no prior criminal convictions, though she did face separate charges in 1996 for disturbing the peace and driving an uninsured vehicle.

She was indicted by a grand jury in March. Her next court date is a pretrial conference scheduled for May 25.