Shackelford Doesn’T Take Stand In His Murder Trial Choice Not To Testify Comes After Defense Motions Denied

Dale Shackelford opted not to take the stand Tuesday in the double murder trial in which he is charged with killing his ex-wife and her boyfriend.

Shackelford is accused of shooting Donna Fontaine and Fred Palahniuk at a remote property outside Kendrick on May 29, 1999. The Missouri man is also charged with setting fire to the building where the bodies were found and with conspiring with his fiancee, Sonja Abitz, and her mother, Mary Abitz, to commit the murders.

Defense attorneys decided to keep Shackelford from the stand after Latah County Second District Court Judge John Stegner denied their efforts to make certain subjects inadmissable. Those subjects included time their client spent in prison on a sodomy conviction in Missouri, an alleged molestation of the child of one of his past girlfriends and an alleged sexual assault of that same girlfriend in a Boise motel.

Other than saying Shackelford would not testify, his attorneys were tight-lipped.

“It’s based on the rulings the court made Monday afternoon,” defense attorney D. Ray Barker said. “I don’t think it will have the effect of shortening the time we’ll be done.”

The defense is expected to finish its case by early next week, bringing an end to one of the county’s longest and most complicated trials.

When asked how Shackelford felt about not testifying on his own behalf, Barker said, “I’m not going to comment on how my client feels. And neither is he.”

Shackelford, who overheard the question, just shrugged.

Shackelford later told another reporter that he couldn’t talk without his attorneys present.