Robert Luch sat quietly and listened Tuesday as the prosecution in his murder trial told the story of an angry man, who suspected his wife was cheating on him. The jury in Luch's trial, in the 2010 death of Jocelyn Luch, heard opening statements from the prosecution.
Luch is accused of shooting his wife on Sept. 28, 2010. She was struck three times in the arm, shoulder and torso. The couple had been married more than 20 years and had four children together.
The prosecution told the jury that on the way to the hospital, after she had been shot, Jocelyn told police she had been shot by Robert because the couple was getting a divorce.
“While she’s pleading for help, while she’s groaning in pain, she says, 'My husband shot me,'” Clint Campion, the prosecutor in this case, told the jury.
Campion said before Jocelyn was shot she had been running at Kincaid Park during the popular Tuesday Night Races, but Robert suspected she was with another man having an affair. When she came home that night, the prosecution says, Robert confronted her in the bathroom with a gun he bought just 11 days earlier.
The couple began to fight.
“Robert Luch was never going to let his wife leave him,” Campion said. “If he couldn’t have her, no one else could either.”
Campion told the jury that two of the couple's children were home during the shooting, and that one of their daughters heard their mother yelling, "Stop pushing me," before she heard two gunshots.
Campion told the jury that after the shooting Robert downed a bottle of pills in an attempt to kill himself.
The defense will give its opening statements Wednesday morning, with the prosecution's first witness taking the stand shortly afterward.
Contact Rebecca Palsha
