Control freak ex-husband called ex 65 times in one night - then shot her 15 times in front of daughter

It was time for Stacia Hollinshead to put her turbulent past behind her and enjoy the new life she had carved out for herself and her young daughter .

Stacia 30, a former army intelligence officer, was a devoted mother to her five-year-old daughter. Despite her successful career and dedication as a mother, Stacia had been unlucky in love .

Her marriage to Ulisses Medina Espinosa turned out to be a nightmare, with Espinosa being controlling, manipulative, and unpredictable. Stacia decided to file for divorce in 2016.

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The couple separated and began their new lives separately. However, instead of solving their issues, the separation only marked the beginning of more problems.

Espinosa, 33, remained obsessively fixated on Stacia, often following her and questioning their daughter about her whereabouts. He insisted on video chats to confirm their location and would incessantly call Stacia, sometimes over 65 times in a single night.

Espinosa was unhappy with the financial settlement of the divorce and felt he had been wronged by it. He also resented Stacia's apparent success post-divorce while he struggled, reports the Mirror .

In response to his harassment, Stacia obtained a protection order against Espinosa, accusing him of verbal and emotional abuse. This order prohibited him from approaching her, and she was granted full custody of their daughter by a judge.

By 2019, three years had passed since the split, but Stacia's ordeal was far from over. The courts were chasing Espinosa for child support, adding to the tension.

He was granted visitation rights to his daughter , provided he was supervised and attended parenting classes. Despite her discomfort with this arrangement, Stacia complied for the sake of her daughter.

Espinosa attempted to win their daughter over with gifts, but she sensed the strained relationship between her parents. Meanwhile, Stacia was focused on building a better future for herself and her daughter .

She earned a law degree and began working as a prosecutor. She also found love again with a new boyfriend who brought joy instead of fear into her life.

However, her past continued to cast a shadow over her present. Espinosa still had visitation rights, which meant Stacia lived in constant anxiety about her unpredictable ex.

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Yet, despite these challenges, Stacia made an effort to maintain a good relationship between their daughter and Espinosa's parents, who resided in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin . On Saturday, March 23, 2019, Stacia took her daughter for a scheduled visit to her former in-laws.

As they caught up and the little girl played, they were oblivious to the fact that Espinosa was en route to the house.

A 911 call at approximately 2.45 pm reported a shooting at a home and armed police to rush to the location. Upon entering the home with guns drawn, officers found Espinosa's mother in a state of hysteria, waving her arms and crying out, "He killed her! He killed her! " Stacia was discovered on the kitchen floor, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds .

Espinosa was found kneeling nearby and was promptly handcuffed as the suspected shooter. Espinosa had entered his parents' home uninvited while Stacia was there. He brought gifts for his daughter, handed them to her in the living room, then proceeded to the kitchen where his mother and Stacia were conversing.

Gunshots rang out, and when his mother turned around, she saw Stacia lying on the floor, bleeding profusely. Espinosa had thrown a gun into the sink.

Stacia had been hit in the head and back by 15 bullets fired by Espinosa. His mother dialed 911 as their five-year-old granddaughter wept.

When asked for his name by the officers, Espinosa simply responded: "I want to speak with my lawyer." He was subsequently taken into custody.

Espinosa's mother expressed shock at her son's actions, stating he had "never been violent" and that the shooting was entirely out of character. "This is not my son," she declared.

She was unaware that he even owned a gun, but acknowledged his past threatening behavior and did not dispute that he was responsible for Stacia's death.

Espinosa was nabbed and slapped with a $2 million bail. Cops digging around his pad turned up a stash straight out of a war movie—body armor, military-style duffel bags, and more rifles than you can shake a stick at.

Running on pure rage, the man had been amassing a personal armory, plotting sweet revenge. The thick plot took a heart-wrenching turn when police spoke with Stacia's daughter .

She told of how her pop had handed over gifts but also of the dread she felt from him just being there, saying it was a "huge problem" 'cause her parents were barred from meeting. "He started shooting Mommy with a gun ," she said. "He kept shooting Mommy."

This scared little one witnessed a nightmare unfold—hearing every shot. And after the terrible silence fell, she recounted that her dad had promised her: "The judge won't hurt us anymore."

But in a sick twist, it was Espinosa who'd delivered the deepest cut with his twisted game plan.

As cops dug deeper, they found he left behind letters titled "Will and testament" like a grim prediction carving out custody plans for his girl to stay with her grandparents like he knew he and Stacia were checking out for good.

Beaver Dam is usually a quiet place — it hadn't seen a murder since 1986. The prosecutor said Stacia's death was the "worst possible outcome of domestic violence".

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Espinosa claimed he had poor mental health and that he acted in self-defense during the shooting spree .

In a bid to spare his daughter the traumatic experience of testifying in court, a plea deal was struck and he confessed to first-degree murder in December. Prosecutors revealed that he had shot Stacia at his parents' home, with their daughter in the adjacent room, driven by frustration over his limited access to the child and financial stress following their separation.

"This is the most serious, most brutal, and violent set of facts that I have come across," stated Assistant District Attorney Jim Sempf. During the sentencing in April, Stacia's family shared how the dedicated, hardworking mother had aspired to be a lawyer since her childhood and had realized her dream through sheer perseverance.

Dodge County assistant district attorney Kurt Klomberg described Ulisses Medina Espinosa as a man of "Ulisses Medina Espinosa is a man of terrible character and is ultimately a coward".

Espinosa received a life sentence as the heartbreaking case concluded. The horrific act he committed that day shattered the life Stacia had painstakingly built for herself, where she hoped to make a difference by bringing criminals to justice.

Tragically, the bright future she envisioned and the good she intended to do were cruelly taken away by the twisted criminal she once believed she could find happiness with.