By Sheila McLaughlin
The Cincinnati Enquirer

LEBANON - An Army sergeant sent home from Iraq after his mother was jailed in the May 13 fatal shooting of her ex-husband said he believes that she acted in self-defense, despite doubts expressed by his siblings.

Even after police revealed Thursday that Steve Ricketts died from a single gunshot wound to the back at his Silverwood Farms Drive home, Christopher Skinner indicated he thought the killing was justified.

The 26-year-old Texan said his slain stepfather "constantly" abused Rhonda Ricketts "verbally, physically and emotionally" for 20 years, countering claims of her other children that she planned the slaying because Steve Ricketts had kicked her out of his house.

"I seen it my whole life ... I think she just got pushed to her limits," Skinner said after a judge's decision Thursday that there was enough evidence to turn the case over to a Warren County grand jury for review.

"She had no one to talk to. I wasn't there for her. I was in Iraq. She needed somebody. She didn't have anyone."

Rhonda Ricketts, 50, a mother of four, remained in the county jail on a murder charge after Judge Mark Bogen refused to reduce her $500,000 bond. The case is scheduled to go before the grand jury on May 30 to determine what, if any, charges should proceed to trial.

Thursday was the first time Skinner heard his mother's hysterical confession to a 911 dispatcher, when the tape was played in court.

He sat tearfully behind Rhonda Ricketts, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief, while she made moaning and sobbing sounds, hung her head below the defense table, and cried out several times, "Make it stop ... Oh, Jesus ... My head hurts."

Her attorney, Jeff Kirby, a board member on the Abuse, Rape and Crisis Shelter of Warren County, said he is confident after meeting with Rhonda Ricketts five times that she is telling the truth.

He plans to employ the battered women's defense, which has been used for women who kill abusive men in the absence of imminent danger.

Lebanon detective Raymond Smith testified Thursday that evidence indicates Rhonda Ricketts may have panicked and run, firing three more rounds at her ex-husband after she fired the first and fatal shot while he was lying in bed on his right side. One live round was found in the .38-caliber five-shot revolver.

Smith said the shot that killed Steve Ricketts entered his back above the left shoulder, pierced a lung, then his aorta, before exiting his chest and lodging in his right forearm.

The Rickettses' 18-year-old daughter, Stephanie, one of two children who lived with them, has denied her father battered her mother and told the Enquirer earlier that she doubted her mother's contentions of self-defense.

She said her parents were arguing less than an hour before the shooting because Steve Ricketts had formally evicted his ex-wife after attempts to reconcile went sour.

Police said Rhonda Ricketts had purchased the revolver the day before the killing.

E-mail smclaughlin@enquirer.com