DETROIT – There's a new push to free a Michigan woman serving a life sentence in prison for the brutal murder of her husband in 2005.
Nancy Seaman admitted to striking Robert Seaman with a hatchet nearly 20 times. She did not call police, cleaned the crime scene, put his wrapped body in her car and went to work the next day.
She said she was abused by Robert Seaman before she was found guilty of premeditated murder by a jury in just a few hours. Nancy Seaman filed an appeal and lost, but there's now growing support to free her from prison.
A group who supports appeared on Megyn Kelly's TV news show Friday. The group included John McDonald, a retired judge who oversaw the trial.
"There's no question in my mind from the testimony I heard that he was a batterer," McDonald said.
Nancy Seaman relived the day in a jailhouse interview.
"When I went to reach for the handle on the generator, there was a hatchet laying on top of it. I felt the handle of it, I grabbed it and I just swung it across my body with a lot of force
Surveillance video showed that she purchased it the day before she used it to kill Robert Seaman. She said she bought the hatchet because she hadn't done fall maintenance on her yard.
"I'm terribly ashamed at how this turned out because I worked so very hard to leave the marriage peacefully," she said. "I feel guilty."
Nancy Seaman says that she suffered from battered woman syndrome and that killing her husband was not premeditated.