DALTON, Ga. — Afraid of Jay Burlison taking her daughters and after enduring what she testified was physical and mental abuse throughout their marriage, Mary Mealer admitted in Whitfield County Superior Court on Tuesday that she had once tried to shoot Burlison, pulling the trigger.

Mealer testified during the second day of the murder trial of Burlison, 75, who is accused of the shooting death of Earnest Griffin and the shooting of Mealer in Rocky Face in November 1984. Jay Burlison and Mealer, then Mary Burlison, were married at that time, and Mealer and Griffin “were seeing each other,” Mealer has said.

Burlison is charged with murder and two counts of aggravated assault with a gun.

Mealer told of going to pick up her daughters from Burlison while they were separated. Arriving where Burlison worked, Mealer said he told her the kids were in the back of the business. When they went to the back, the kids weren’t there, but Burlison had a gun, she said.

“When we got back there, he said, ‘You’re not taking the girls,’ pulled the gun out on me,” Mealer said. “He said, ‘I’m going to shoot you.’ I said, ‘Jay, you don’t want to do this.’ I knocked it (the gun) out of his hand, and I pointed it on him, and I would have shot him, but the gun was empty. Then he started beating me with it.”

Mealer detailed the events of Nov. 12, 1984, when the shootings occurred at what was then a Golden Gallon convenience store.

Mealer said she was divorcing Burlison and was scheduled to be in court on Nov. 14. During the months of separation between the two, Mealer said she and Griffin became romantically involved. The night Griffin was killed, the couple had met at the Golden Gallon where Mealer worked and then Mealer went to Griffin’s house to have dinner with his son. They returned to the convenience store shortly before midnight to get her car and went inside to talk to store clerk Ron Harris.

“We went into the store and I was telling Ron what needed to be done,” Mealer said. “When I got done talking to Ron, we (Mealer and Griffin) walked out to the car together. As we walked out to the car, I seen Jay pull up and he pulled in behind mine and Earnest’s car both. As soon as Earnest opened his car door to get in his car, Jay jumped out of the car and Jay shot him. And then I run and got in my car, and when I got in my car, he come over to the car and he shot me in the chin first. And then I bent my head down on the steering wheel and then he shot me three times, and they went in here.”

She pointed to her lower back.

“Then when I heard the gun click, I jumped out of the car and run into the store,” Mealer said. “I told Ron, ‘Call 911, we’ve been shot.’”

“What was Jay doing when you were running into the store?” District Attorney Bert Poston asked.

“He was beating me over the head with the gun, and when I told Ron to call 911, Jay pointed the gun at Ron and pulled the trigger, but he didn’t have no bullets left,” she said.

Harris testified that he didn’t see any of the shooting outside of the store, but he said he remembered Burlison coming into the store and pointing the gun at him.

“She come running in, and she said, ‘Call the law. Call the law,’” Harris said. “He came in and I remember this, he said, ‘This ain’t none of yours.’ When he looked at me and said it was none of mine and was pointing (the gun) at me, I was frightened half to death.”

The state still has left to call former Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office detective Glenn Swinney, who worked the case and is now the lead detective for the district attorney’s office. Swinney is expected to testify Wednesday morning and the defense will begin its case after the state rests.

In his opening statement, Poston told the jury of six men and six women the shootings were the end result of years of an abusive marriage filled with violence and threats.

In his opening statement, Assistant Public Defender Micah Gates said the prosecution has “no physical evidence whatsoever” and is trying to sell the jury a “story.”

Poston said Burlison was hiding from law enforcement after the shootings, while Gates said he was living in fear, saying Mealer had attempted to kill him before and hated him.

Burlison was found in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, and brought back to Whitfield County in July of this year.

“The only two people they have whatsoever are going to be Mary Mealer and Ronald Harris,” Gates said. “Those are the two people they are going to use to sell a story. Mary Mealer, you are going to hear, is a person you can’t trust.”

Harris, who was “19 or 20” at the time of the shootings, according to Poston, is in custody at the Whitfield County jail when not at the trial. He was transferred to the jail from Ohio where he is serving time in prison for a felony conviction for the rape of a child.

“The state has two liars — an attempted murderer and a child rapist — to tell you what happened,” Gates said.

Ann Kendall, Mary Mealer’s daughter and the stepdaughter of Burlison, testified that Burlison came to her house the night of the shootings and the two went to dinner. Burlison delivered a threat, she said.

“He told me the next time he saw my mom he was going to kill her and anyone with her,” Kendall said. “At that particular time, he said that she wasn’t going to leave him. I was just begging him not to. I was terrified of him.”

During Kendall’s testimony, Burlison could be heard telling one of his defense attorneys, “She was my favorite kid.”

Kendall said she followed Burlison to Rocky Face and into the parking lot of the Golden Gallon.

“I was in the car behind him,” Kendall said. “I saw him jump out of the car and pull the gun and that was the last I remember.”

Under cross-examination by Gates, she admitted she never saw or heard any gunshots.

“I just saw him step out of the car and pull out the gun, and I don’t have any recollection of anything going on after that,” she said. “I have memory of going to what used to be the Favorite Market and telling them there had been a shooting.”