LACROSSE, Wis. – The jury recessed to consider the fate of Lori Ann Phillips after she concluded a second day of gripping and painful testimony about the February 2019 night her husband died. Phillips, now 50, described her husband as “amazing when he was sober” but horribly abusive when drunk. She called his behavior paranoid. When drunk, he acted out jealousy in the imagined belief that she was seeing other men, she said. He always apologized once he was sober. Mark Phillips, 48, was found dead in a snowbank on the couple’s driveway, having been run down by Lori Ann at the wheel of her pickup truck. She said he was trying to get away and didn’t know she had struck him.
Getting away
Lori Ann Phillips described this as what happened when they got home.
> After arriving home from a bar with Mark, she gathered up personal items to get away for the night and went the pickup in the garage to drive out. Mark chased her and tried to open the passenger door. She drove of,, not realizing that she had knocked him over.
> She parked nearby and texted Mark that she wasn’t going with him to his new job in North Dakota. She wished him the best.
> She began looking for a hotel room first at a Comfort Inn, which had no vacancy. By text she booked a room at the Baymont Inn but learned when she arrived that she had booked the wrong night.
> Because she had been drinking, she was concerned about getting arrested for drunken driving. Figuring that Mark probably was asleep in a stupor, she decided to drive home. This was about 2 a.m.
> The night as “pitch black” and she didn’t see Mark’s body in the snowbank along the driveway. His shoes were inside the doorway, and she assumed he was inside sleeping. She went inside and slept on a couch.
> When she awakened about 6 a.m., she walked and saw her husband’s body from the corner of an eye. She “freaked out,” ran straight to him, and realized he was dead. She called 911.
Phillips. On witness stand four hours over two days.
News coverage
Lori Ann Phillips’ trial has a national news following. The cable network Court TV staffed all five days. British stations kept viewers abreast with new testimony. The trial began Monday and went all week. The jury received instructions from Judge Elliott Levine on Friday afternoon. Deliberations began immediately and were expected to resume Monday.