An arraignment has been scheduled Dec. 12 for Michael Allen McFarland of Silverton on charges related to the June 6 death of his wife, Jessica McFarland, 32, at their Mineral Street home.
In a hearing Nov. 7, 6th Judicial District Court Judge Gregory Lyman found probable cause for McFarland, 30, to stand trial on assault in the second degree and a crime of violence. McFarland also faces a charge of second-degree manslaughter.
In Friday’s hearing, San Juan County Undersheriff Bruce Conrad testified that after a 911 call, he arrived at the home in the 1300 block of Cement Street shortly after 1:35 a.m. on the morning of June 6.
There, Conrad said, he found Michael McFarland “covered in blood” and screaming. Inside, he found Dee and Ladonna Jaramillo, the McFarlands’ neighbors, in the kitchen.
“There was a lot of blood on the walls, cabinets and floor,” Conrad said, and broken glass was strewn throughout the kitchen.
Conrad testified that he found Jessica McFarland lying on her back in a room north of the kitchen. She was unresponsive and had no pulse.
Conrad said he noticed “three large lacerations about her neck and chest that appeared to be full depth.”
Silverton Ambulance crew performed CPR for “38 or 39 minutes,” Conrad testified, but they were unable to revive McFarland. Conrad, who is also a deputy coroner, pronounced her dead at 2:24 a.m.
Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent Jeff Brown said he arrived at the scene later that morning and noticed a “moderate-sized” hole about 6 inches in diameter in the window of the door between the kitchen and a mudroom.
And he said that he and the state bureau agent Jim Fuller interviewed Ladonna Jaramillo.
She related how Michael McFarland knocked on her door early that morning and told her that “she threw a bottle at me and I threw one back and it hit her in the throat.”
Fuller said Jessica suffered “a number of wounds and some major lacerations.”
He said most were in a “hand-sized area in the upper chest, neck, collar-bone area.”
And he said that “numerous pieces of glass were in her body or on her body.”
Judge Lyman said he found probable cause on both the count of assault in the second degree and crime of violence. He scheduled a Dec. 12 arraignment for 1:30 p.m. at the San Juan County Courthouse.
According to Brown’s arrest warrant affidavit, McFarland said he and his wife had been drinking at a friend’s house that day and at Romero’s bar that evening. When they got home, they put their two children to bed and they started arguing when they got home.
