Testimony ends in Atwood trial Verdict expected next week in death of girlfriend in 2006

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SKOWHEGAN – Closing arguments were made Friday morning in Somerset County Superior Court in the murder trial of Shannon Atwood, 38, of Canaan.

After hearing five days of testimony and 49 witnesses, Justice Nancy Mills has taken the case under advisement and is expected to present a verdict sometime next week.

Atwood is accused of murdering Cheryl Murdoch, 38, in July 2006 and dumping her body in Burrill Woods in Canaan, a few miles from the home they shared on Route 23. Murdoch died of repeated blows to the head, but no murder weapon or murder site was ever found.

Also missing is Shirley Moon-Atwood, Atwood’s estranged wife, who last was confirmed seen by police in March 2006.

After closing arguments, Lucille Hoxie, the victim’s mother, said both the Moon and Murdoch families were united in their belief that Atwood had murdered both women.

“It is important that Shannon Atwood remain behind bars so that he cannot only pay for the crimes he has committed, but so he cannot deceive and kill another woman,” Hoxie said.

Murdoch’s daughter, Sarah Murdoch, who was 13 when her mother was killed, said, “No child should have to go through this.”

Sarah Murdoch had been waiting for her mother to arrive at Hoxie’s home in Arizona after Murdoch said she and Atwood were driving out to pick Sarah up and bring her back to Maine on July 27, 2006.

“She kept waiting for her and watching through the door,” Hoxie said. When Murdoch and Atwood did not arrive, Hoxie notified police and learned two weeks later that her daughter’s body had been found.

“My mom didn’t deserve this,” Sarah Murdoch, now 15, said Friday. “She had some issues but she was a good woman, a good mother.”

Hoxie said, “We know Cheryl thought she was getting in that truck that morning. She was so excited and looking to the future. It was the happiest I had seen her in years.” Hoxie admitted that she was concerned because her daughter and Atwood had known each other only a month but her daughter said this was her chance for a new beginning.

“She said. ‘Oh Mom, come on. This is the nicest I’ve been treated by any man, ever.’ She called him her angel,” Hoxie said.

Both families said they were unaware that Atwood had a violent history. He had once choked his own mother in an argument over a car that eventually ended in a police chase. In 1993 he was sentenced to six years in jail with all but three years suspended for aggravated assault on a former girlfriend.

Hoxie said that in the days before her daughter’s murder, Atwood had left the home in Canaan repeatedly, telling Murdoch he was going to work for a trucking company and was installing a compact disc player for her daughter in the truck they were going to drive to Arizona. Atwood actually had no truck and no job.

Hoxie said she believes that when Atwood couldn’t come through with the trip he promised, and Murdoch caught on to his lies, an argument ensued and Atwood killed her.

When Murdoch did not make contact with her mother as promised, Hoxie began checking trucking companies, Canaan neighbors and others who might have information about them.

“Sarah wanted me to call the police earlier, but as a mother, I couldn’t think that way. I thought maybe the truck broke down or something else happened,” Hoxie said, crying. “But it wouldn’t have made any difference. She was already dead. We didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

Hoxie said she and her family “know that Shirley Moon-Atwood is already dead.”

Police originally charged Atwood with his wife’s murder but dropped those charges last November without prejudice, meaning they can bring them back at any time.

Moon-Atwood’s sister Candy Daniels of Idaho said she wants Atwood to tell her where her sister’s remains are. She said her sister was “so much fun, spirited and feisty. She was so good at sewing, cooking, gardening and wanted a family so bad.” In long letters the two shared, Daniels said her sister wrote about her chickens, her horse and a pond she was digging.

“I miss her dearly. All I’ve ever wanted is to know where is Shirley,” she said.

Both the state and the defense said in their hour-long closing statements that they proved their cases.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson said the case, based entirely on circumstantial evidence, “really is a whodunit.” But he said the rational inference from the evidence was that Atwood “kicked or stove or beat in” Murdoch’s head.

Benson said a series of “amazing coincidences” proved Atwood’s guilt, including his use of Murdoch’s cell phone just hours after she vanished, rope found near her body, the planned and then aborted trip, directions Atwood provided a former lover to a campsite near the body’s location, Atwood’s sale of Murdoch’s car, and that Atwood barricaded himself in his home when police came to search the property.

“This behavior was bizarre and inexplicable for an innocent man,” Benson said.

Alsop told Mills “There is reasonable doubt here. History is replete with unsolved mysteries. That is the case here. Where is the when, where, how, who and why? There is no evidence.”

Alsop described Murdoch as “homeless, jobless, using [drugs], had just put her daughter on a one-way trip to Arizona, was putting the arm on her ex-husband, who she hadn’t seen in years, for money and cars.”

“This trip [to Arizona] was a pipe dream to keep her going, to explain the mess her life was in,” Alsop said.

In rebuttal, Benson called Alsop’s statements “colorful flights of fancy.” He said there are a lot of things that no one knows in this case but that the quality of evidence presented overwhelming proves Atwood guilty.

Mills is expected to return a verdict by midweek.

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