'He beat on her:' Family speaks out for woman charged with murder

ALLEN COUNTY, IND. ---There was blood from the victim and the defendant on the serrated kitchen knife she's accused of using to stab him, a DNA forensic scientist said in court Wednesday.

There’s surveillance video of Christina Habegger, 37, arriving at the Oliver Street home of her boyfriend, Robert Higginbotham III. A couple of minutes later, he staggers away and she leaves.

Christina Habegger

There’s body camera evidence from Officer Treven Brown confronting her in an alley behind Tecumseh Avenue after he said she sped away from him. Inside her black SUV, he found an unused bottle of bleach in the car. 

There was a fresh knife wound on her left hand she was licking as B-shift detective Elizabeth Beasley interviewed her. Without prompting, Habegger told her “she wasn’t there,” and mentioned something about taking seizure meds.

What the jurors didn’t hear Wednesday during Habegger’s three-day murder trial this week was any motive for why she would want to stab Higginbotham, her boyfriend, on Oct. 13, 2022.

But her family had plenty to say, just outside the doors of Courtroom 2.

“He was beating on her,” her mother, Joyella Habegger, said. “He was trying to control when her kids were coming over to the house." Neighbors heard threats through the walls of the duplex they shared with Habegger in the 1800 block of Kentucky Avenue and called police. He turned the cops away saying she was sleeping when, really, she was unconscious, she said.

Joyella Habegger and her partner of 30 some years, Richard Guerra, said Higginbotham had just gotten out of prison when Christina met him a couple of months before the stabbing. His step-brother, Napoleon Kidd, also said in court Tuesday that they got together “when he got out.”

They and Habegger’s sister, Pauline Habegger, believe Higginbotham was the one who broke her fingernails right before she traveled with the knife to his home. Detectives for the prosecution documented the fingernails. The DNA expert said both blood and skin cells could have been underneath her nails. That could have been proof of a struggle, something lead defense attorney Tyree Barkley believes could be behind the crime.

“She always took pride in her nails,” Pauline said. “She had them done every two weeks.”

Almost worse for her family, Christina left Decatur, where they all live, to get away from an abusive situation with the father of her three kids, they said.

“She’s gained so much weight,” Joyella said as she sat in court, looking at her daughter she hadn't seen in 28 months.

Guerra said Christina had spent “50% of the time in the hole,” because she’d been threatened by other inmates associated with Higginbotham. "The hole" is a term for solitary confinement.

Indiana has no battered spouse syndrome used in other states, according to a defense attorney not involved in this case. A tool like that might have come in handy when defense attorneys Barkley and Jamie Egolf searched for some reason to claim domestic violence on Habegger's part. But then there’s the video of Christina pulling up to his home at 5:55 p.m., five minutes after he returned home.

Christina Habegger was also the one who stabbed Higginbotham on Sept. 2, 2022, lead prosecutors Tom Chaille and Tesa Helge said, along with Kidd, although no explanation has been given for why she did that.

Body cam of Fort Wayne officer Zachary Chapman walking into Higginbotham’s hospital room was shown in court. Higginbotham seemed to smile while he refused to give a statement.

“Well, that’s that,” Chapman replies.

Chief Deputy Chaille and Chief Counsel Helge of the Allen County Prosecutor’s Office have shown their mastery in presenting a case, tying up evidence in a series of detective statements, testimony from Higginbotham’s step brother, Kidd, and the mother of his child who initially attempted to get him help, and the forensic evidence. Higginbotham died from a stab wound to the left side of his heart, a wound almost impossible to survive, forensic pathologist Dr. Lyndsey Emery said.

Tomorrow (Thursday) there will be text messages between victim and defendant to share with the jurors.

So far Christina Habegger has barely spoken, her face the pallor of someone who’s been in jail for a while. Two and a half years is a long time to go without seeing the sun.