Suspect's wife says gun used to kill Fort Carson soldier was hers

Tira Bressler cried on the witness stand Friday as she said her husband often carried the revolver used in the 2007 killing of Fort Carson Spc. Kevin R. Shields.

Her husband, Louis Bressler, is accused of gunning down Shields after a night of drinking to celebrate the victim's 24th birthday. Much of the day in court Friday was spent on the .38-caliber weapon that prosecutors say was used to fire the fatal shots.

The shiny, snub-nosed revolver was purchased by Tira Bressler in 2006 and was usually stored in the couple's kitchen. But days after the Dec. 1 homicide, it turned up missing in a police search of the apartment.

Tira Bressler testified she was working all night when the killing occurred and arrived home the morning of Dec. 1 to find her husband asleep in bed.

She said there was no sign that he might have been involved in the early morning horror that left Shields dead on an Old Colorado City street.

"I didn't notice anything," she told the 4th Judicial District Court jury.

Bressler became a suspect in the case after police began talking to two others who had been with Shields that night, Bruce Bastien and Kenneth Eastridge. Those two and Bressler served in the same platoon with Shields when their Fort Carson unit fought in Iraq.

Bastien is serving 60 years for his role in Shields' death and the August 2007 robbery and murder of Fort Carson Pfc. Robert James, a crime in which Bressler is also charged.

Eastridge got a 10-year term for his role in Shields' death.

The two are expected to testify against Bressler next week.

Information from the two men led police to the discarded revolver, which was thrown from a bridge over a gully near the intersection of Interstate 25 and Woodmen Road.

A check of records showed the gun belonged to Tira Bressler.

That leaves Bressler's defense team the task of showing that someone else pulled the trigger.

Prosecutors, who have slowly built their case over the past three days, are working to show that Bressler killed Shields because he knew too much about the killing of James and other crimes.

Defense attorneys, though, want to convince the jury that Eastridge and Bastien cut sweetheart deals in exchange for their testimony and are framing Bressler.

Before Shields was killed, Eastridge and Bressler were close friends. Eastridge had been staying on the Bressler family couch for more than a month, Tira Bressler testified.

The circle of friends included Bastien, she said, recalling a time when she and her husband accompanied Bastien and Eastridge to a shooting range to fire the revolver later used to kill Shields.

The next, and likely final, week of trial will probably scrape away whatever friendship might be left as Eastridge and Bastien testify about Bressler's role in the killing.

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Contact the writer: 636-0240 or tom.roeder@gazette.com