A man charged with killing a deputy sheriff and seven other people in Mississippi in 2017 said Monday that he did not want to testify in his own trial where he could face the death penalty.

The now ex-wife of a Mississippi man on trial in the shooting deaths of eight people testified Sunday about how a sheriff's deputy was shot in the face by the man she described as "abusive" and "controlling."

A man accused of killing eight people in Mississippi was fearful of the breakup of his family and "just snapped," an attorney for the defendant argued Saturday during the first day of his death penalty trial.