The jury in Ellen Wink’s murder trial will get back to work deliberating her fate Friday morning, following a day off for the Juneteenth holiday. The seven women and five men had the case for about an hour on Wednesday before court dismissed for the day. The critical question for the jury isn’t whether Wink killed her tenant, Kurt Lametta, inside her property at 16 Nelson Ave. in Norwalk. They have to determine whether the deadly shooting was intentional, as the prosecution argued, or the result of self-defense or extreme emotional disturbance, as the defense claimed.

The prosecution began presenting its case against Wink, a former Norwalk official, on Tuesday, June 3. The first day included a central piece of evidence—a cellphone video of the fatal incident. Lametta was secretly recording his encounter with his landlord on Jan. 20, 2022, and ended up capturing his own death. The incident began relatively calmly with Lametta complaining about Wink entering the house and cleaning out the fridge because she wanted to sell the house.

"That's ridiculous. Every day you're going to come and throw people's stuff away?" Lametta asked.

The phone was in his hand by his side. There’s some rattling sound, then two shots followed by a pause.

"You bastard,” Wink stated, before firing three more times and shouting at Lametta in a guttural voice.

“Get out! Get out! Get out! Get out of my house! Get out of here!” Wink screamed as Lametta fell to the floor, dropping the phone.

The screen went black but continued to record Wink yelling at Lametta.

"You think I'm [expletive] with you?! Do you?! Do you think I’m [expletive] with you?! Knock it off, you [expletive]! I'll give you nice! [Expletive] off!"

Wink picked up Lametta's phone and carried on shouting as she left the house, appearing to toss the phone into a home. A neighbor’s camera recorded her walk across the street to her house, 18 Nelson Ave., where she called 911.

The jury heard that recording on the second day of the trial.

“Well, my tenant came after me while I was in there trying to clean up a little bit,” Wink told the dispatcher on Jan. 20, 2022.

Throughout the over five-minute recording, Wink rambled on—at times incoherently—about Lametta.

"He starts telling me what to do, and I'm like, 'Get out! Will you get out? When are you getting out?'" Wink said on the call.

At one point, she mentioned having a gun, but Wink never told the dispatcher she'd just shot Lametta five times.

“You just had a verbal disagreement? Was it anything physical?" asked the dispatcher.

"No, this has been ongoing. This has been ongoing," Wink replied.

She also said, “I've never, never hurt anybody in my life. This guy is just beyond.”

Jurors also saw police body-camera footage from the first officers on scene, who were met by a very calm Wink.

"Who had a gun?" Officer Tiffany Ortiz said in one video.

“I did. Yes, I did," Wink responded.

The footage showed Ortiz putting handcuffs on Wink and walking her to the police car. On the stand, Ortiz testified Wink was cooperative and gave her the code to get into 16 Nelson Ave.

"Do you need my gun? It's in my house," Wink said to Ortiz in the video.

Another clip from Ortiz's body camera caught Wink explaining the situation to then-Lt. Terry Blake, the first supervisor on the scene, whom Wink knew.

“He just [expletive] blew it. Enough is enough!” Wink said, never mentioning that Lametta came after her.

The prosecution believes that wasn't the case, and the deadly shooting was the culmination of a contentious landlord-tenant relationship that escalated over five months. Text messages read aloud in court showed Wink first told Lametta to leave at the end of August following a fight he had with another tenant. There were also issues with late or missed rent, air conditioning being left on and alleged damage to property. But the prosecution believes things took a turn on Sept. 18, 2021, when Wink was arrested for allegedly locking Lametta out of the house and throwing his belongings in the dump.

Officer Matthew Sauer, who responded that day, testified during the trial about speaking with Wink.

“Did you inform her in that initial interaction that she had to legally evict him?” Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney Michelle Manning asked.

"Yes," said Sauer.

“And did she also indicate to you that she had those problems before?” Manning continued.

“Yes,” Sauer responded.

“Did she indicate to you that she's ‘so sick of these laws.’ Do you recall her saying that?” asked Manning.

“Yes, I do,” Sauer said.

That statement was captured by Sauer’s body camera, which was played in court for the jury.

In it, Wink told Sauer she took the actions she did because she thought Lametta had moved out, which Lametta denied.

“I want something done about my personal stuff being thrown away—jewelry, important memories. You have no right! You have no right!” Lametta said in the footage as Wink responded, “It’s my house.”

Sauer testified he informed Wink that legally, she had to let Lametta back in the house, and if she didn't, she'd be arrested.

Wink refused and was charged with criminal lockout—a misdemeanor but one the prosecution believes goes to motive in Lametta’s death. The state alleges tensions only escalated in the next four months.

Other officers took the stand about additional incidents between landlord and tenant, including on Nov. 26, 2021, after Wink turned off the home’s heat and electricity. Officer Jake Colletto said he warned Wink she couldn’t just do that and needed to go through the proper eviction channels.

The prosecution contends Wink wanted Lametta out of her house in “any way, shape or form,” and when other methods didn't work, turned to murder. Ten days before Lametta’s death, Wink went to the site of an online article titled, “Bang: 5 Most Deadly Bullets on the Planet,” according to testimony from Sgt. Nate Paulino. Paulino said on the stand that from Jan. 9, 2022, to Jan. 12, 2022, Wink did about two dozen web searches or site visits regarding guns and hollow point ammunition.

The state’s chief deputy medical examiner told the jury that the five bullets pulled from Lametta’s body were hollow point.

But the defense claims Wink pulled the trigger that day because she feared for her life. Another tenant of 16 Nelson Ave. recorded a fight he had with Lametta in August 2021, during which Lametta made a threat toward Wink. That tenant, Ian Roth, testified that he told Wink what was said and sent her the audio clip.

“I'll straighten her ass out for [expletive] running her mouth to you,” Lametta yelled in the clip, which was played in court.

The defense focused on Lametta's character. Attorney Stephan Seeger asked Detective John Sura, the lead investigator in the deadly shooting, about a conversation he had with another responding officer on scene. The comments were recorded on a body camera.

“You called the victim a real piece of [expletive], didn't you?” Seeger questioned.

"I did refer to him like that, yes," Sura replied.

“Why did you refer to Mr. Lametta as a piece of [expletive] at the time of your debriefing with Sgt. Tolnay?” continued Seeger.

"Because I believe it was used to describe some of his past criminal behavior in the city of Norwalk,” Sura said.

Seeger also brought up Lametta's prior arrests, including one for resisting arrest, in which police used a Taser on him.

Dr. Jessica Pearson, a clinical psychologist, testified that Wink was afraid of Lametta and had been warned by other people to be careful of him. Pearson took the stand in support of the defense’s extreme emotional disturbance claim. She said Wink experienced symptoms of a mental health condition called an adjustment disorder in the lead-up to the deadly shooting.

“When someone has an adjustment disorder, there is an identifiable stressor that leads to impairment symptoms and impairment in some aspect of functioning, and here, Ms. Wink was having symptoms that were outside of her norm,” Pearson told the jury, explaining that Wink’s ongoing attempt to get Lametta to move out, was the stressor. “Those symptoms include anxiety, fear, anger, frustration, despair, hopelessness, helplessness.”

Pearson said her opinions were based on seven meetings with Wink this year, along with a review of the evidence in the case and independent interviews with people who know her.

Pearson told the jury that Wink said seconds before the shooting, she saw Lametta move, thought he had a weapon and feared for her life.

“It's my opinion that she was overwhelmed, and she experienced a loss of control. And it was due to all of the emotions and experiences we've discussed,” Pearson testified. “The physical difference between Ms. Wink and Mr. Lametta is very notable. Ms. Wink was a 61-year-old woman and Mr. Lametta was a very substantially sized man.”.

But the state called a rebuttal witness who disputed Pearson’s opinion.

“The result is extreme, but it’s not an extreme emotional disturbance,” Dr. Catherine Lewis, a forensic psychiatrist, testified.

Lewis explained the conversation Wink and Lametta had in the minutes leading up to the shooting wasn’t unusual or conflictual, and the two previously had much more intense interactions where Wink didn’t use her weapon. Lewis also touched on the text messages Wink sent Lametta in the months and weeks before, noting Wink initiated the communication, often sending several texts at a time without a response, including some that were “really quite cruel.”

“If someone is terrified of someone, that would be unusual behavior,” Lewis said.

Lewis also drew attention to the cellphone video of the shooting, calling Wink’s statements after pulling the trigger, “powerful evidence” that explains why she did it.

“She says, ‘Get out! Get out! Get out! Do you think I’m effing with you?!’” Lewis testified, adding Wink didn't say she was scared and fired because she feared for her life.

Seeger countered that the video doesn’t show the whole story. He claimed a sound in the video just before the first shots was Lametta opening a knife drawer before moving toward Wink. In his closing argument, Seeger urged jurors to put themselves in Wink’s shoes.

“I want to remind you about the notion of perceived threat. What's going on? 365-pound man. Woman. They have a history. Take account of the perceived threat,” Seeger urged.

In Manning’s final remarks to the jury, she told them to really look at that footage, which doesn’t show Lametta move until he’s shot.

“This was deliberate. Two shots weren't enough, and he started to try and get away, and she had to shoot again,” Manning said, reminding jurors Lametta took two bullets to the back, one to the side, and two in the front of his body.

Manning also pulled up still images from the video showing Wink advancing toward Lametta, not the other way around, and pushed jurors to use their common sense.

The jury can find that the prosecution proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt and convict Wink of murder or determine the state didn’t meet its burden and acquit her. They can also find Wink not guilty by reason of self-defense or not guilty by reason of extreme emotional disturbance, the latter of which means an automatic conviction of first-degree manslaughter with a firearm.