Officer's widow recounts sorrow for jurors in N.H.

MANCHESTER, N.H. - The wife of a murdered Manchester police officer told jurors deciding his killer's fate yesterday that nothing is the same since her husband's death two years ago.

"I lost the only stable man ever in my life. My kids lost their dad. That's hard to watch your kids go through," Laura Briggs testified on the first day of Michael Addison's sentencing hearing. "There's certain milestones that when your kids reach - I didn't really have a dad, so I just couldn't wait to watch Mike teach Brian how to shave . . . I figured I'd get to watch the father-son thing."

Addison, 28, was convicted last week of capital murder for fatally shooting Michael Briggs in October 2006. The Hillsborough County Superior Court jury must now decide whether Addison will get life in prison without parole or the death penalty.

Mrs. Briggs began to cry as she recalled saying goodbye to her husband the night he left for his last shift. She said she was awakened by Concord police at her door in the early hours the next morning.

"They didn't look like things were OK," she said. "You could just tell by the looks on their faces that things weren't good."

The police told her Michael Briggs, 35, had been in an accident and took her to Elliot Hospital in Manchester.

The room where they were caring for Briggs was crowded with people, and Mrs. Briggs said she could tell immediately the situation was serious. She went to her husband, who was unconscious.

"His hands were really cold, so I knew it wasn't good," she said. She was given grim test results and soon was deciding whether to take him off life support.

During morning testimony, the jury heard about Addison's troubled and chaotic childhood.

Defense attorney Richard Guerriero told of how Addison's mother drank and did drugs while she was pregnant. He read from hospital and social worker records describing the mother as violent and an alcoholic and saying she should not be left alone with her infant son.

Virtually abandoned by his abusive mother, Addison bounced from home to home, his family sometimes neglecting to feed and bathe him, Guerriero said.

Guerriero said Addison's tough upbringing did not excuse what he did, but is a reason not to put him to death.