A woman from Lee County, Alabama, was arrested for murder in June of 2019, following an incident in which she’d gunned down her husband, months after giving birth to their third child. Brittnay and Brandyn Paonessa had reportedly been violent towards each other at various times in their six-year marriage. Brandyn was arrested in 2018, for punching his wife in the stomach after she’d reportedly looked through his phone. The third-degree domestic violence charge was eventually dismissed at Brittnay’s request. Brandyn was in the US Army throughout the couple’s marriage and had done two tours in Afghanistan. By the summer of 2019, the infantryman was based at Fort Benning on the Georgia-Alabama border. In June, he sought an emergency protection from abuse order against Brittnay, alleging that she was “very mentally ill”, “very unstable” and that she refused to get professional help. 26-year-old Brandyn accused his wife of threatening his job and of stalking him, his family and friends. He noted a particularly harrowing incident in which Brittnay had “ran a truck into the house”, narrowly missing their children. Three days after filing for protection, Brandyn would be dead. On June the 13th, under unclear circumstances, Brittnay fired a shotgun blast into his abdomen at their home in the 500 block of Lee Road, in Phenix City. Brandyn was found unresponsive in the front yard and later pronounced dead. Brittnay’s murder trial was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and, according to a 2022 update, a judge had ordered her to undergo a mental health evaluation. It was suspected that her erratic behaviour leading up to the murder was linked to postpartum depression.