4 years after deadly shooting, Kentucky man found guilty of murdering his wife

For four years, Joshua Descoteaux and his family have awaited the trial for the man accused of murdering his sister, Jennifer Montgomery, 27.

On Monday, the murder trial began for Montgomery’s husband, Colin Montgomery, a 33-year-old Danville resident. He shot and killed his wife in March 2018. On Wednesday, a Boyle County jury found him guilty of murder.

Montgomery was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Thursday. He could’ve faced a life sentence.

Colin Montgomery’s defense team asked the jury to find him guilty of manslaughter. That would’ve led to a sentence of 17 years. They argued their client was under extreme emotional distress at the time of the shooting.

Descoteaux told the Herald-Leader this was the justice his family had sought. He said he felt very grateful and relieved after the verdict was read.

“We went through the horrible process of a trial because we believed he committed murder against my sister,” Descoteaux said. “His defense came to us multiple times with manslaughter and 17 years, but we never backed down.”

Wednesday, Colin Montgomery’s defense team argued he was under extreme emotional disturbance when he shot and killed his wife with their two young children in the home, ages 7 and 1 at the time.

The defense, led by Andrew Long and Nathan Shirley, said the defendant lost all control when he found his wife was taking part in an alleged extra-marital affair.

But prosecutors said the arguments didn’t prove emotional disturbance. One prosecutor said in court that Colin Montgomery called his mom and spoke to her for several minutes between the time he found out about the affair and the time he shot and killed his wife. The couple had also successfully filed for divorce before the shooting.

“This is not a situation where he caught her in bed, ... that is not what happened,” said Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Richard Bottoms. “She made a simple statement when he kept asking her if she was seeing someone and based on that, (the defense) wants you to think it was reasonable for Colin to shoot his wife with three buckshot shells from a shotgun.”

To prove extreme emotional disturbance, the defendant must have suffered a profound loss of self-control. Whatever the emotion, whether it’s sadness, anger, fear, or any other, it must be very intense. There also must be a reasonable explanation for suffering this extreme emotion.

The sole evidence presented to the jury by defense attorneys was an interview between the couple’s son and a child advocate.

In the video interview, the son tells the advocate he heard his mom saying she was in love with another man, and recalls his dad, Colin Montgomery, questioning “Who?”

“Mommy said ‘I am in love with another man,’ and daddy was shouting, ‘Who? Who?’ …He said he was going to kill her, and he got the gun, went outside and said, ‘Get out of my house,’ and shot her,” the son said in the video.

Following the son’s video interview, defense attorneys called their only witness, Michael Dukes, who admitted to the court he had a secret affair with Jennifer Montgomery for approximately two weeks leading up to her death.

Dukes said he and Jennifer worked together, but he was an acquaintance of Colin, whom he went to middle school with.

On March 5, Jennifer had filed for divorce from her husband, according to court testimony. This was her second attempt to file for divorce. The first attempt occurred a year prior but it resulted in reconciliation.

Shirley said Colin and Jennifer Montgomery had been married nine years, recently bought a new home, and were raising two children. He said the couple was “building the American Dream.”

“So for Colin to find out that his wife was having a secret affair with him for weeks with a former schoolmate, that was absolutely beyond devastating,” Shirley said. “It was so unexpected that Colin went into a state of hysteria and extreme emotional disturbance and killing Jen was a spontaneous act caused by a temporary fit of extreme emotion that was so powerful, it overcame his judgment at the time of the event.”

Bottoms said the Montgomerys’ marriage was “anything but the American Dream.”

Bottoms referred back to evidence that Jennifer and Colin Montgomery had successfully filed for divorce the day before her death, with child support, the division of real and tangible property and custody arrangements having been determined.

“The shots are not fired until after that he asks if she is seeing someone and she says she was seeing someone else,” Bottoms said. “Then someone gets shot. That is not reasonable after you have all that history of the marriage being over. The marriage was over. It was not the American Dream. They had signed the divorce papers.”

Bottoms argued in his closing statements that to find Colin Montgomery guilty of manslaughter would be to “let him get away with murder.”

He referred to other evidence that Colin Montgomery called his mother before shooting his wife, stating he was going to kill Jennifer Montgomery, and spoke to her for over three minutes before the fatal shots.

“He talked for three minutes and 35 seconds. He didn’t just grab the shotgun and shoot her. He talked to (his mother) for three minutes and 35 seconds. That is quite a long time. …When he made the statement he was going to kill her, (his mom) didn’t care enough at that point to call for help because it was not an extreme emotional disturbance.

“Divorce should not equate to the decision to shoot someone. It was not immediate, there was a delay, he talked to his mom. He knew about the divorce and he was angry and hurt. But that is not a reasonable explanation or excuse for extreme emotional disturbance. It takes more.”

Descoteauxadded in the first two days of the trial that the jury heard from about 12 witnesses brought forth by prosecutors to discuss the investigation. A majority of these witnesses, Descoteaux said, were police officers who responded to the scene and were involved in the investigation. He said they showed bodycam footage, pictures of Jennifer’s body, and damage to the house.

“It was setting the scene for the jury as to just laying out the facts and they were laid out there in black and white and there was not much else in terms of building the case,” Descoteaux said. “I think that anybody with a conscience could say, I don’t care if a person was sleeping with a million people, that does not give a justification of killing in cold blood with three point blank shots with a shotgun.”

He argued his sister’s story was just one example of the horrors of domestic violence.

“It is not just reading about a murder in the paper, it is more than that,” Descoteaux said. “My sister had a right to happiness, a right to remain with her kids and a right to raise her kids. It is a horrific reality when someone makes the decision to end someone’s life like (Colin Montgomery) did.

“We knew the risks of the defense of the extreme emotional disturbance and that they would center their defense around an affair. I’m glad this set a precedent for all women trying to get out of a relationship that you just can’t get away with murder.”

Simultaneous to the criminal court battle, Descoteaux said he and his family faced a custody battle with the Colin Montgomery’s family over who would have custody of their two children.

Throughout the criminal trial, the family matter was resolved in March 2022 when the family was awarded split custody.