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Marisa Hierro was giddy. It was May 4, and she had heard that a woman had jumped off the One Main Place roof in Dallas and fallen 33 stories to her death. According to an affidavit of then-Hierro employee Maria Guerrero, "Marisa Hierro joked, laughed, and was happy thinking it was Catherine Shelton. Marisa Hierro even called the security at the building to find out if indeed it had been Catherine Shelton."
Marisa Hierro, who did not hide her hatred of Catherine Shelton, was wounded by a shotgun blast.
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Hierro was obsessed with Shelton, according to three former Shelton employees and an Hierro business acquaintance. In affidavits gathered as part of Shelton's defense to the civil grievances filed against her, each witness describes Marisa Hierro's desire to harm Shelton professionally.
"It's like a bad Jamie Lee Curtis movie," Catherine Shelton says. "Why was [Hierro] so obsessed with me?"
But even if, as alleged, Hierro tried to ruin Shelton's practice, it would simply be more motive for Catherine Shelton to want her killed, say those who believe she had something to do with the murder. (Hierro could not be reached for comment.)
Shelton doesn't deny that she was furious at Hierro. She says her animosity was at least partly based on how foolish she felt after having trusted Hierro to such an extent as to have made her, in effect, a partner in her law firm.
When Hierro went to work for Catherine Shelton, she quickly made her mark; Shelton says Hierro collected $40,000 in overdue criminal fees. "That turned my head," she says. "Right like that. The money. And that wasn't the immigrant shit. She was a hell of a bill collector."
Shelton says Hierro became more than just an office manager and partner; she also became a confidante. She says Hierro would drive her around at night, while Shelton would drink and cry about her failing marriage. "She was a combination maid/personal secretary," Shelton says.
Shelton says she gave Hierro carte blanche to work full-time on the immigration cases because they brought in money. "I'm guilty of negligence," she says. "ŠI fed the bad dogŠ.I gave her status, because I was so fucked up in my own personal life, and so miserable, and so depraved, really."
The Sheltons say Hierro knew about Catherine's alleged affair with Parker, and Clint Shelton wanted that testimony in the divorce case. That's why Clint's defenders say he had nothing to gain by killing her or Michael Hierro.
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What will be unanswered regardless of the outcome of the murder case is, Just who is Catherine Shelton? Is she what many people believe: a coldhearted, masterful manipulator who has managed to kill or orchestrate the killing of her enemies for two decades? Or is she, once again, an almost-too-impossible-to-be-true victim of circumstance?
"I'm a thorn in everyone's side, don't you know that?" she asks sarcastically. She reaches under a chair and pulls out the January 13 Houston Press issue and reads from the cover headline about her, that " 'Six of her ex-lovers or associates are wounded or dead.' How about the truth? How about 30, or 35? One ex-lover is dead. I've known 35 or 40, maybe 50, that are dead. People who were shot, or killed, or killed each other. What do you think I do for a living? I'm not a nurse."
She's a criminal defense lawyer, and she knows that despite her claims of innocence, there's little hope for immediate relief. Clint, she says, won't implicate her to lighten his sentence because he believes he'll be found innocent if the case goes to trial.
In any event, there are many questions to be answered by one or both of the Sheltons. Among them:
Why is one of Catherine Shelton's best friends, Judith Mercer, representing Clint Shelton in his divorce proceedings? Clint Shelton says he didn't know they were "best friends."
"I do know that she is a top-notch, highly ethical lawyer who is also a ball-buster," he says. (Reached on her cell phone, Mercer said she would call back for an interview, but never did.)
Why did they have a mask made out of underwear in their trash? Clint says it was only his worn-out underwear, and Catherine says she used it as a cleaning rag. She says if she had used it in any attack on the Hierros, she would have thrown it away with any mask Clint used. "It's confabulated," she says.
Shelton talks until there is no more tape left to record her. Then she walks me through her dark house, reiterating points of her story. Naturally she is concerned that she may harm her civil cases or any possible criminal case by speaking out, but she says, as does her husband, that the suspicion they are under is largely the result of media and political pressure. She finds a picture of herself, unretouched, and hands it over. "That's the real me," she says. "Not pretty, but not guilty."
