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Melissa Gholson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of her husband in Orange Park, Florida, and received a 40-year sentence in Florida State Prison, the State Attorney's Office announced on May 15, 2023.

Gholson, 39, lived with her husband, David Christopher Gholson, 36, on Plymouth Court in Clay County. The police report described the couple as separated and said he left two children. In her recorded interview, she said they had no children together and his children were from a former marriage. Neither had any reported prior violent arrests. She had an earlier arrest in 2009 in Neptune Beach for disorderly intoxication. A detective remarked during the interview that she had no criminal history; she said her family were police officers, retired from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

The Clay County Sheriff's Office report placed several arguments at the home on Saturday, October 30, 2021. The State Attorney's Office release dates the killing October 31, 2021, the day she turned herself in. Prosecutors said David Gholson urged his wife to seek help. She took a pistol from a gun safe and later put it in a drawer. When the arguing resumed, she retrieved it, pointed it at him and pulled the trigger. It clicked because no round was chambered. He ran into the garage, where she followed him and shot him several times. He died of his injuries.

She returned inside, watched television and slept on the couch, leaving his body in the garage. The next day she ran errands, then went to her sister's home and told her what she had done. Her sister took her to the Clay County Sheriff's Office. Deputies went to the house for a welfare check and found David Gholson dead in the garage.

Gholson turned herself in with her sister on Sunday, October 31, 2021, and detectives questioned her in a recorded station interview. After they read her the Miranda warnings, she asked whether she needed a lawyer and what the difference was. Told that requesting one would end the interview, she agreed to talk. She asked to call her father and said she wanted to see her sister. Detectives told her she could call him at some point.

According to the arrest report, Gholson said she intentionally shot her husband, was not afraid for her life and was not acting in self-defense. She said she was tired of the arguing and wanted it to stop. She was booked into the Clay County Jail and charged with second-degree murder, not premeditated.

Her guilty plea came under a plea agreement, and Judge Steven Whittington imposed the sentence. No appeal has been reported.

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Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.