Heather Horst wanted husband dead, killer’s roommate testifies

May 17--A roommate of admitted murderer Aaron Allen had often heard Heather Horst talk about alleged abuse by her husband.

Horst said "the only way she felt she could leave her marriage was if he were to die," Zubrina Phillips testified Friday.

Heather Horst, 25, is on trial in Ramsey County District Court in the Aug. 5 murder of Brandon Horst, 25, a member of the Minnesota Air National Guard. She faces charges of first- and second-degree murder.

Her friend Aaron William Allen, 26, of South St. Paul has pleaded guilty to shooting Horst to death in the Horst home in the 400 block of Bellows Street in St. Paul. Allen testified he killed the man at Heather Horst's behest and that she promised him a cut of her husband's life insurance.

Phillips and her boyfriend were living with Allen and his fiancee, Angela Penoncello, in their one-bedroom apartment. Penoncello was Brandon Horst's stepsister.

Heather Horst was a frequent guest during the summer of 2013, Phillips said, sometimes coming over several times a day.

Having experienced domestic abuse herself in a previous relationship, Phillips said she thought it odd that Horst shared so much about the alleged beatings.

"You're not that open about it; it's something you don't want openly to admit to people," Phillips said.

Prosecutor Karen Kugler asked Phillips if she had ever seen bruises, bite marks or slap marks on Horst. Phillips said no.

Horst also said her husband caused two miscarriages by beating her, Phillips testified. In July, Horst told her friends she was pregnant again. Horst was 25 or 26 weeks along, she said, according to Phillips. Phillips also was expecting a baby.

"Did she appear pregnant to you?" Kugler asked.

Not initially, Phillips said. But one day, she came to the apartment looking "like she had gained 15 or 20 pounds," Phillips said. Horst told them her doctor had inserted a balloon in her cervix to push the baby up and stave off pre-term labor.

The day before the slaying, Horst came to the apartment with her 9-month-old godson. She was upset. Phillips, Allen and Allen's fiancee were there. She had had another miscarriage that morning, she told them.

"He held her down and beat her when he found out she was pregnant," Phillips said Horst alleged.

"She claimed when she got there that she had just gotten out of the hospital," Phillips said.

Phillips said she heard discussion between Horst and Allen about the insurance policy.

"(Horst) believed the policy was worth $1 million," Phillips said. "She offered to give Aaron $350,000."

Phillips said after Allen returned from the Horst home Aug. 5, she heard him tell her boyfriend that "he did it -- he had taken care of the problem."

Later that morning, Horst came over to report that her husband had been killed.

Kugler asked what Horst's tone of voice was like.

"Fake shock, to me," Phillips said.

Defense attorney Deborah Ellis pressed Phillips on what she knew firsthand.

"You never heard (Horst) ask someone else to kill Brandon?" the attorney asked in cross-examination.

"Personally, no," Phillips said.

She conceded that people react in varying ways to grief.

Phillips also acknowledged that after she heard Allen had been arrested, she did not tell police he had admitted to the shooting when he came home the night of the murder.

She told Kugler that she learned her boyfriend had initially been part of the plot but had backed out at the last minute.

Emily Gurnon can be reached at 651-228-5522. Follow her at twitter.com/emilygurnon.

___

(c)2014 the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.)

Visit the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) at www.twincities.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services