P.

BACKGROUND

The relationship between defendant and Holly Upshaw had once been cordial. It started when they were introduced by Upshaw‟s fiancé when he, the fiancé, was in prison. According to Upshaw, defendant “became my caretaker while my fiancé was in prison.” “We pretty much did everything together.” They lived together in their cars,

1 which they often parked at the Blue Heron motel. But eventually their relationship began to fray. “We started bickering like a married couple because we were around each other all the time.” On the evening of February 24, 2010, Upshaw and defendant quarreled before she left the Blue Heron to get gas for her car. Defendant followed in his pickup truck. That evening, Marion Thom, the manager of a Texaco station in Eureka, observed a man and a woman arguing in a nearby parking lot. The man got into a pickup, backed into a car being driven by the woman, and then drove away. Thom had already called 911 when the woman, Upshaw, came into the station office. Thom gave the telephone to Upshaw, who told the operator that it was defendant who had struck her car. Upshaw reported that she and defendant had been fighting, that defendant had demanded money…