A St. Paul woman found guilty of fatally stabbing her boyfriend last year is poised to get a second chance at proving her actions were in self-defense.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the conviction against Natalie Pollard after finding that the Ramsey County District Court erred in the instructions it gave to jurors in the case.
The lower court gave jurors what are referred to as “justifiable taking of life” instructions to weigh in evaluating Pollard’s guilt when it should have provided general self-defense instructions, according to the higher court’s findings.
Pollard’s conviction was vacated Monday, leaving the Ramsey County attorney’s office to decide whether it will retry her.
The state plans to do so, assuming all the same witnesses are available to testify, said Dennis Gerhardstein, a spokesman for the Ramsey County attorney’s office.
He added that it would be up to a Ramsey County judge to determine when a new trial would take place.
Gerhardstein declined to comment further on the higher court’s decision.
Pollard’s attorney, public defender Andrea Barts, did not respond to a request for comment. Reached at his home, Pollard’s father said he hadn’t heard about the development.
Pollard, 36, was sentenced in March of last year to nearly 11 years in prison after a Ramsey County District Court jury found her guilty of unintentional second-degree murder in the death of her boyfriend, Obinna Nwankpa.
She gave birth to his son while incarcerated in the case.
Pollard was arrested shortly after calling police to her home July 2, 2015, to report a break-in. Police found Nwankpa, 30, unconscious and bloody at the bottom of her basement stairs.
He died a short time later from a stab wound to his chest.
Pollard was found in the living room, her shirt covered in blood. Investigators also saw blood at the top of the basement stairs, on the stairs and in the basement near the washer and dryer.
Pollard’s children were home at the time.
She argued at trial that she acted in self-defense after Nwankpa broke into her house.
She told investigators he came in through a window and started fighting with her. She followed him to the basement and picked up a knife on the way.
Downstairs, he came at her and the two fought again, she told police. At some point, she said, she swung the knife at Nwankpa and cut or stabbed him.
She told police her boyfriend had physically abused her in the past but she had never reported it.
When police told her he’d died, “she cried and said ‘I’m sorry, God.’”
Before his death, Nwankpa was charged in Anoka County with domestic assault against another woman who called him her boyfriend at the time.
He also pleaded guilty to a charge of interfering with a 911 call and was convicted in 2011 of domestic battery in Illinois.
Pollard’s criminal history includes traffic violations and a disorderly conduct conviction in 2004, which was dismissed when she met conditions in the case.
She was transferred from prison in Shakopee to the Ramsey County Jail following the state Supreme Court’s decision.
A hearing in her case is set for Thursday.
Nwankpa’s family could not be reached for comment about the development.