SANFORD, Fla. – A man whose ex-wife is accused of drugging him and trying to kill him in a house fire testified on Wednesday.
Kimberly Boone is charged with trying to kill her husband in 2008 by giving him Xanax and intentionally lighting their home on fire.
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The fire was initially ruled an accident, but when Boone admitted to shooting her husband the following year, saying she thought he was an intruder, the investigation was re-opened.
Boone was fond not guilty last year of attempted murder in connection to the shooting.
Robert Boone returned to Florida to testify on Wednesday morning after moving out of state shortly after his wife shot him in the chest three times in 2009.
He took the stand for an hour and a half to describe being trapped in a burning house.
The state said Kimberly Boone set the stage for the fire by slipping her husband Xanax, an anxiety medication that only she had a prescription for, then loading up her car and setting the house on fire, leaving her husband in the house to die.
Prosecutors said Kimberly Boone wanted to kill her husband because she owed $700,000 to an employer she had embezzled money from and she wanted to collect her husband's $200,000 life insurance policy.
The defense offered an alternate theory, pointing out that Robert Boone is a former firefighter and law enforcement officer, and he did not get burned in the fire.
Robert Boone was clearly aggravated when defense attorney Francis Blankner questioned why a veteran firefighter had to be pulled from a burning home and why he ran to the front of the house when other windows and doors were closer.
The defense also noted that Robert Boone had been out of work for years, and Kimberly Boone was the breadwinner in the family.
The defense said that Robert Boone knew about his wife's debt to her employer, and implied that they both wanted to collect the home owner's insurance money from the fire.
Robert Boone was the recipient of the homeowner's insurance check for $130,000, but he testified that it was only because his wife had proven she could not handle money.