SPRINGFIELD — A downstate man on trial for murder testified Wednesday that “millions and millions of people hated me” following his arrest for assaulting two people at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In an attempt to explain his state of mind ahead of a Nov. 8, 2022 crash that ended the life of 35-year-old Lauren Wegner of Skokie, Shane Jason Woods said his arrest led to “instant, instant, instant depression.”
“I was national news,” Woods said.
That kind of attention was jarring to Woods after he grew up in the small downstate town of Divernon, Woods told a Sangamon County jury. He said he received hate mail, endured online harassment and his children were bullied at school.
Woods said his arrest over the riot also ended his previously successful heating and air conditioning business in Auburn.
“I would have rather been dead than alive,” Woods testified.
Woods took the stand in a trial in Springfield where his lawyers have set out to defend him against first-degree murder charges over Wegner’s death.
Woods is accused of driving the wrong way onto Interstate 55 near Lake Springfield on Nov. 8, 2022, causing a fiery crash that killed Wegner and injured a couple from Granite City.
The crash followed a traffic stop, during which Woods allegedly told an officer “it takes a big f—-ing man to say what I’m about to say: I’m gonna kill myself.”
At the time, Woods faced nine years in prison for assaulting a law enforcement officer and a cameraman at the Capitol.
Asked Wednesday whether he’d become an “ardent supporter of President Trump,” Woods replied, “I would say an ardent supporter of Americans.”
However, Woods said he regretted his actions at the Capitol “100%.”
He also said he tried to kill himself twice before the November 2022 crash, including by trying to hang himself the month before.
Woods acknowledged that, when police tried to pull him over the night of the crash, he became worried that he’d be forced to begin serving his sentence over the Capitol riot sooner than expected.
He testified that he “didn’t know exactly what I was doing” when he turned onto I-55 immediately before the crash, but he understood he was driving the wrong way onto an off ramp.
Woods said he was “figuring I was getting ready to die.”
Woods said he meant to drive head-on into a semi-truck, explaining to the jury that “big truck beats little truck.”
“I figured I would die and he would be fine,” Woods testified.
But, Woods said, “a little car was in front of me, and I tried to steer out of the way, but we both turned in the same direction.”
Defense attorney Daniel Fultz asked Woods if he “took a young lady’s life who had no skin in the game?”
“No,” Woods said, “she’s innocent.”
Special prosecutor Derek Dion pushed back during his cross-examination on whether Woods understood what would happen when he turned the wrong way onto I-55, though.
Eventually, Dion asked, “How old are you?”
He asked Woods, 47, whether he’d ever driven into oncoming traffic before.
“A person doesn’t do that,” Woods said.
“Why not?” the prosecutor asked.
“Because it’s reckless,” Woods told him.
“Someone can be killed?” Dion asked.
“That’s what happened,” Woods conceded.