JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

Wesley Earnest enters the courtroom Monday after a break in his preliminary hearing in Bedford.

BEDFORD -- Details of a riveting murder case began to take shape Monday involving a husband and wife in the middle of a divorce.

Wesley Earnest, 37, a well-known teacher in Bedford County, Lynchburg and then Chesapeake, is charged with killing his estranged wife, Jocelyn, who was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head in December 2007 in her Forest home. Investigators say she was shot the evening before.

During a preliminary hearing Monday morning, it was revealed that a suicide note found near Jocelyn Earnest's body -- a note prosecutors say she didn't type -- included a surprising revelation of a relationship between her and a female co-worker.

Amy Tharp of the medical examiner's office said the wound to Jocelyn Earnest's head did not appear to be self-inflicted. And fingerprints on the note matched those of Wesley Earnest, according to Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Wes Nance.

"That is not a suicide note," Nance said. "It is a homicide note."

The note, discussed at length in court, included a reference to a "new love" in Jocelyn Earnest's life and to financial problems between the Earnests, which included a $2 million home at Smith Mountain Lake.

Marcy Shepherd, a co-worker from Genworth Financial in Lynchburg, found Jocelyn Earnest's body the morning of Dec. 20 after Shepherd became concerned when Earnest didn't respond to text messages, e-mails or phone calls.

In court Monday, when asked if she knew who the new love in Jocelyn Earnest's life was, Shepherd quietly said, "me."

Defense attorney Blair Sanzone read the line of the note in court, which said, "My new love will not leave the family."

Shepherd, who is married and has children, said her relationship with Jocelyn Earnest never became sexual but acknowledged the two had shared a romantic relationship since the summer of 2007.

"We talked about the fact that we could not act on that in any way," Shepherd said.

It is unclear if Wesley Earnest knew of the women's relationship.

Jocelyn Earnest filed for divorce in June 2006. In the filing she accused Wesley Earnest of having an affair with Shameka Wright.

Wright, of Rustburg, testified Monday she and Wesley Earnest had been a couple since the summer of 2004.

He was arrested at Wright's Campbell County home February 27. A search warrant later was executed there and the serial number on a gun box seized from Wright's home matches the serial number on the weapon found by Jocelyn Earnest's body, Investigator Mike Mayhew of the Bedford County Sheriff's Department said.

Wesley Earnest told investigators he gave the gun -- a .357-caliber revolver -- to Jocelyn Earnest as a gift.

Entries in her journal stated Jocelyn Earnest was uncomfortable around guns and indicated she feared her husband.

On August 11, 2005, she wrote: "If you read this know that he killed me ... he being Wesley Earnest my cheating husband."

Mayhew summarized another of Jocelyn Earnest's entries.

"If anything ever happens to me Wesley probably done it," Mayhew recounted. "He probably shot me and killed himself."

Shepherd found Jocelyn Earnest dead from a single gunshot wound to the head, according to court testimony. The typed note implying suicide was found by the victim's body.

The bullet entered the back of Jocelyn Earnest's head on the right side and exited the left temple, Tharp said.

Because of the angle of the path the bullet took and the range of the shot, Tharp said, the suicide was "theoretically possible but improbable."

The preliminary hearing took place in Juvenile Court because the Earnests were in the process of a divorce. The hearing ended with Bedford County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Phillip Wallace finding probable cause to move the case forward. Wallace also denied bond for Wesley Earnest.

The charges -- murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony -- will go before a grand jury to be certified and the case would be heard in circuit court.

The Earnests had been separated for more than a year. The Forest home was Jocelyn Earnest's primary residence. The couple had another home at Smith Mountain Lake where Wesley Earnest lived. He worked more than 200 miles away in Chesapeake. Mayhew testified that school officials in Chesapeake, where Wesley Earnest worked as a middle school principal, verified he was at work on December 19 and 20.

Nance said Wesley Earnest told investigators "he had to beg, borrow and steal from whoever he could to make ends meet" because of the financial situation Jocelyn Earnest put him in. In the initial divorce filing Jocelyn Earnest said she never wanted the lake home. According to documents in the divorce file, the monthly mortgage payment on the lake home was $5,700 while his monthly income was just under $6,500. Jocelyn Earnest worked as a project manager at a financial management company and earned about $7,500 a month.

During the divorce proceedings Wesley Earnest sought spousal support. A judge denied that request but ordered Jocelyn Earnest to pay 25 percent of the mortgage on the lake home -- which is for sale -- until it was sold.

The Earnests did not have any children.

One of the last people to see Jocelyn Earnest alive may have been Susan Roehrich, a licensed marriage and family therapist.

Roehrich testified Monday that Jocelyn Earnest had been her client since July 2005 and her last appointment ended shortly after 7 p.m. Dec. 20, 2007.

She described Earnest as being "very positive" and "upbeat" during the session. Roehrich said the two discussed the Earnests' divorce trial, which tentatively had been set for March.

"She was ready to get on her with her life," Roehrich said.