Shooting victim's partner testifies at trial for 2023 Bonner homicide

Testimony began Thursday with law enforcement officers who responded to the scene. But they only arrived after the shooting. There was one other person right there when it happened: Marker's girlfriend of two years, Jinjur Easterbrooks.

Duggin told officers that Marker, 46, had been acting aggressively earlier in the day, and when he went outside that evening to respond to a strange noise, he saw Marker attacking Easterbrooks. Easterbrooks, however, took the stand late Thursday and early Friday to say Marker had never attacked her. 

"Jay had a way of making me feel loved every day," she testified. "Of course we had arguments, all couples do, but he was never physical with me."

She and Marker had been going through some misfortune at the time, she said, and were living in a tent by her friend's trailer while they made plans about what to do next. On the night of Nov. 17, 2023, Easterbrooks said, the two of them were putting together some papers in their tent, close enough for their heads to bonk together if they weren't careful. Marker had his back to the tent door and was sitting down, Easterbrooks said. 

"Outside I heard a pop, and I smelled the gunsmoke, and that's when he had been shot," she said. "I didn't know Ron was there, I didn't see nothing. I don't know why all this happened." 

During cross-examination, Duggins' defense attorney Thomas Schoenleben asked Easterbrooks if Marker had ever rummaged around in the house. Easterbrooks said she'd heard Duggin say that at some point, but that she didn't believe it was true because she and Marker were always together if one of them was in the house. She also said that her friend, to whom the house belonged, never said anything about Marker being creepy or overstepping boundaries. 

Schoenleben also pressed Easterbrooks on some inconsistencies between her testimony at trial and her initial interviews with investigators. In response, Missoula County Attorney Matt Jennings had her explain that her initial interview was conducted immediately after she'd learned that Marker had succumbed to his gunshot wound at St. Patrick Hospital.

After Easterbrooks' testimony wrapped up Friday morning, the trial turned to that hospital and the people who treated Marker before his death, and who examined him afterward. 

Marker was brought to the hospital at 7:54 p.m., according to testimony. At 8:18 p.m., he was dead. 

In opening statements on Thursday, Schoenleben had asserted that the bullet trajectory would contradict the state's account of the case. While no one who testified was able to offer analysis of the bullet trajectory, during Friday's questioning of Kristy Burkhardt, who assisted with the autopsy, Schoenleben noted some details from the autopsy report. According to the report, the bullet entered at Marker's front right side, 23 inches from the top of his head, and traveled from front to back, ending up lodged six inches higher than the entrance wound.

Both sides have tried to pin down through witness examination exactly where Easterbrooks and Marker were in the tent at the time of the shooting. On Thursday, Jennings even asked if he could pitch a replica of the tent in the courtroom for demonstrative purposes. Duggins' defense team objected, and after considering the matter over lunch break, Elliott decreed there would be no tent. 

The trial is expected to continue through Aug. 14.