FREEHOLD - When Jonelle Melton’s husband found her body on the bedroom floor the morning she didn’t show up for work, he thought she was unconscious, he testified at the trial of three men accused of murdering his wife.

“It was weird (because) she was laying there and I thought she fell because her face was a different color. And I know she does her makeup in the morning,” said Michael Melton, 43, who was in the process of divorcing Jonelle Melton when she was killed. “In my mind, I’m thinking she fell and hurt herself; that she was just unconscious.”

Jonelle Melton was killed in her Neptune City apartment that night. Ebenezer Byrd, Gregory Jean-Baptiste and Jerry J. Spaulding are on trial for her murder before Judge Joseph W. Oxley in state Superior Court.

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Prosecutors allege that the three men broke in Melton's apartment through a window, bound her with duct tape, breaking her jaw in two places, and shot her in the shoulder. When they realized they had the wrong apartment — not the apartment of a man who was believed to keep thousands of dollars in the freezer — they shot her in the head, said Lawrence Nelson, an assistant Monmouth County prosecutor.

The case went cold for several years before arrests were made in 2015 and 2016.

At the time, Michael Melton and his wife were still "intimate" and remained friendly, he testified. They talked on the phone almost every morning before work, and were both teachers at Red Bank Middle School, he said.

Jonelle Melton, a fifth-grade social studies teacher, was supposed to get together with her husband’s fourth-grade social studies class that Monday, Sept. 14, 2009 — the morning she was found dead — to watch one of President Barack Obama’s speeches on education.

Melton, who called his wife a few times on the way to work that day, testified that he was asked by office staff at the school if he would mind checking on her, since she didn’t show up or call out of work.

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“I pulled in, I see her car, and I started feeling a little relieved,” Melton testified. “I knew she had to be home.

“I went up to the door and I yelled out her name a couple times and she didn’t answer,” Melton said. “I tried the knob thing and saw that it was open.”

Melton found his wife on the floor of her bedroom, between the bed and her makeup table.

“I saw that the table she used to do her makeup on was broken, like one of the legs was (broken) off of it,” Melton said. “She was laying there and then there was the table.”

“I remember seeing blood on her nightgown, like by her neck,” Melton said. “I yelled for her a couple times, and I immediately got on my cellphone and called 911.”

“I checked her wrist because the (911 dispatcher) asked me if she was breathing,” Melton said.

Melton, who testified that he didn’t know how to perform CPR, said he “didn’t know what was wrong with her” and “didn’t want to make matters worse” by moving or touching her.

“Once I saw her, the only thing I was worried about was making a phone call and getting help,” Melton testified. “I can’t remember how the living room or kitchen looked. Once I saw her, my whole concentration was (about) trying to get her some help.”

Melton said he did recall that “stuff” looked like it had been “thrown around” in the bedroom.

When an officer arrived at the scene, Melton — who had gone outside to flag the help down — went back inside.

“(The officer) was like, ‘she’s cold.’ I asked him if she was dead, and he said yeah. And that’s when I broke down,” Melton said.

Melton also testified about the nature of his relationship with his wife. The couple met when they were 11 or 12, growing up in Trenton, Melton said. They reconnected in 2000, and were married in 2003.

Their marriage fell apart in 2007, Melton said.

"She was a beautiful girl and loved me so much and cared for me so much," Melton said. "It was just that the way I was raised. I grew up in the projects and my mom ruled with an iron fist, and my father wasn’t in my life. The way she loved me, I couldn’t reciprocate it.

He said he "ran away" from the situation because he didn't know how to handle "all the affection" she gave him.

The defense's cross-examination of Melton will resume Thursday.

Jonelle Melton’s upstairs neighbor at the time, Eric Luciano, also testified on Wednesday. He said around 4 a.m. Sept. 14, 2009, his dog started barking and woke up him. He got up, walked around the bed and looked at the clock while his girlfriend was sleeping.

“I did hear muffled noises, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was,” Luciano testified.

“It sounded like maybe things being moved around. I heard a metal clang. That was pretty much all I heard,” he said.

The three men are charged with felony murder, armed robbery, armed burglary, conspiracy to commit burglary, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and unlawful possession of a weapon. In addition, Byrd and Jean-Baptiste are charged with witness tampering.

The trial will continue at 9 a.m. Thursday in Monmouth County Superior Court. Stay with app.com for updates.

Kala Kachmar: @NewsQuip; 732-643-4061; kkachmar@gannettnj.com