A Mount Clemens woman said she warned her sister who was fatally shot by her estranged husband not to go to his home to pick up two of her children the night he killed her.
Kelly Femminineo testified Wednesday at Steven Bryce Wheeler’s first-degree murder trial in Macomb County Circuit Court that she told Jordan Wheeler, 33, not to go to their former marital home in Clinton Township to pick up her two sons the night of Oct. 19, 2023, because she knew Wheeler had been consuming alcohol.
The couple’s sons, Colton, 8 at the time, and Carson, then 7, had called their mother, who was staying at Kelly and Jacob Feminineo’s home, minutes apart at about 8:45 p.m. to complain about their dad.
“I told her not to go there,” Femminineo said on the stand. “I knew that he was probably drinking. I’m thinking it wasn’t a good environment. … She was going over there, and he had a history of being mad when she came over to the house.”
She considered accompanying her sister to the home but “was advised not to go there.” She did not say who provided her the advice.
She said earlier in the testimony Wheeler’s drinking was “a big issue” in their marriage. Jordan Wheeler had filed for divorce about two months earlier, and their first court hearing was scheduled for the following week.
She said during his and Jordan’s estrangement, he would become “very aggressive” when he could not immediately reach her by texting and calling her, and would continually try to contact her.
After getting the calls, Jordan Wheeler, dressed in a T-shirt, pajama pants and slippers, let out a big sigh and seemed “annoyed” she needed to go to the home, located a 10-minute drive away near 15 Mile Road and Little Mack Avenue.
“I gotta go get the boys,” Jordan Wheeler told Femminineo, she said, adding, “She was annoyed because she had to go get (them) because she had her pajamas and slippers on” and was about to watch a movie with her daughter before ending the night.
That was the last time Femminineo saw her sister as she was shot five times in the head by Wheeler inside the home near the front door as she was trying to leave with the two boys, who were exiting as their mother was killed. Wheeler was intoxicated, authorities say.
Femminineo, whose husband is Judge Jacob Femminineo of 41B District Court in Clinton Township, took the stand at the start of Wheeler’s jury trial in front of Judge Julie Gatti in the county courthouse in Mount Clemens.
Macomb prosecutors contend Wheeler, 31, premeditated the shooting and should be convicted of first-degree murder, which carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole. Wheeler’s attorney, Noel Erinjeri, is seeking conviction of a lower offense, second-degree murder or manslaughter.
Assistant Macomb Prosecutor Kumar Palepu told the jury in his opening statement Wheeler had time to plan the shooting as he walked 27 feet to a bedroom closet to retrieve the handgun he used to shoot her during a heated exchange with his estranged wife .
“It’s about choice, his choice, which was deliberate,” Palepu said. “He decided to take the steps, literally steps,” to get the gun and shoot her “until there were no bullets left.”
Palepu said when Mrs. Wheeler arrived at the home, she began to video and audio record the incident on her phone. She also looked for evidence of Wheeler’s drinking. Wheeler can be heard screaming, “Get the f— out of my house. Get the f— out of my life.”
After Wheeler “grabs and shoves” her, she calls 911.
“He put his hands on me. I have it on video,” she told Macomb County Sheriff’s dispatcher Taryn Grady, according to a recording of the call previously played in court. “He grabbed me and tried to push me out of the home,” Jordan tells the dispatcher.
Steven Wheeler can be heard in the background denying it, and Jordan responds, “It’s on video.”
The dispatcher then asks whether “he has guns.”
“Yes, he has guns” that are “somewhere in the house, probably in the bedroom,” Jordan replies.
The dispatcher moments later asks, “How many children are in the home?”
But Jordan doesn’t answer, and seconds later five gunshots are heard on the recording.
Steven Wheeler then is heard yelling, “F— you. I f—ing killed you bitch. I shot you in the f—ing head.”
He screams at the dispatcher, “I shot her in the f—ing head.”
He exits the home and outside repeats that to a neighbor who was approaching.
Meanwhile, Kelly Femminineo, who was tracking her sister’s location on her phone, says she drove to the home. There, she found the two boys in a neighbor’s truck and learned of her sister’s death from police, who had already arrived.
Kelly Femminineo choked back tears at times during her testimony. She said she and Jordan were close, and described her as “amazing” and very involved with her children.
On the day of the incident, “She was great, in good spirits,” she said. She had taken her daughter to her dance lesson. “She made a really good dinner that was five star. Everything was normal,” Femminineo said.
In his opening statement, Erinjeri told jurors his client believed that he was “being set up” by his wife in relation to their divorce and child-custody case due to her recording her visit.
“He thought he was losing his kids,” he said. “This case is not about justification. It’s about what was going through his head.”
He said Wheeler did not plan the shooting, stating the bedroom from where he retrieved the gun was a short distance away, closer than the 27 feet suggested by the prosecution. The gun was located 27 feet from where Mrs. Wheeler’s body was found, not the distance he walked, he added.
“In a blink of an eye he shot Jordan,” he said. “When all is said and done, this was not first-degree premeditated murder.”
The trial, which is expected to last through next week, is scheduled to resume Thursday.
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