A few days before John "Budweiser" Wiser allegedly beat his wife to death in front of her two children, he found her and a group of friends looking at a piercing one of them had gotten, witnesses said.
Witnesses - who spoke in hushed tones while testifying Tuesday in Hamilton County General Sessions Court - said the group had gone to a business where one of the women got a piercing described as "down there," but said it was bothering her.
John Wiser, 27, became enraged when he found the group of men and women examining the piercing in a bedroom of the couple's home on Sleepy Hollow Road, witnesses testified.
Friends of 31-year-old Shannon Wiser said her husband began pushing, hitting and threatening people in the group, including his wife.
"She was very afraid," testified Stephanie Jerrell, a neighbor who let Shannon Wiser stay with her for several days after the Sept. 4 incident.
Based on that testimony, Judge Christie Mahn Sell bound over to the grand jury the charges of first-degree murder and assault and also denied Wiser bond.
Wiser, who was present with court-appointed attorney Alan Dunn, stood near the judge with his back to the witnesses and never looked at the courtroom crowd.
On Sept. 7, Shannon Wiser had just come home and was talking on the phone with Jerrell when police say Wiser marched into the house and attacked her, slamming her head against the bedroom wall and choking her as her two small children stood nearby.
Shannon Wiser struggled on life support for five days before dying from her injuries.
An investigator who testified Tuesday said Wiser later told police he had beaten his wife more in the previous few days than he had ever beaten her or any other woman.
"He said he had not been that angry in a long time," Detective Alexis Mercado testified. "He said he didn't think a woman should be hit like that."
Jerrell testified that as soon as Shannon Wiser hung up from their conversation on the day of her beating, she and her husband got into their car and rushed toward the couple's home to stop Wiser. They called 911 on the way, she said.
Once at the house, Jerrell testified she heard Shannon Wiser screaming. Her husband went inside and found the children, Jerrell said, and she found Shannon Wiser on the sidewalk.
"There was blood coming out of her mouth," she said. "She grabbed my leg and said, 'Hospital, hospital.'"