NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Melanie McGuire appeared before a family court judge three years ago and asked for a restraining order against her husband, who she claimed had pushed and slapped her.

Prosecutors now trying McGuire, a fertility clinic nurse, for murder claim that the allegations of physical and verbal abuse were lies to camouflage an even uglier truth about her marriage: She had killed her husband.

On Wednesday, the prosecution played an audio recording of the hearing, offering jurors who have heard six days of testimony against McGuire, 34, a chance to evaluate for themselves whether the quiver in her voice was genuine and the details of her account convincing.

As McGuire, dressed in a fitted houndstooth suit and black stilettos, huddled over a transcript with her lawyers, her voice echoed out of speakers around the courtroom. Jurors stared intently at their own transcripts of a state Superior Court judge questioning McGuire April 30, 2004, two days after William McGuire, a 39-year-old computer analyst, was last seen alive and a week before his remains were found floating in the Chesapeake Bay.

She told the judge then that she did not know where her husband was and that his parting words to her after their violent dispute suggested she might never know.

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"[H]e also told me that he would go away and leave, if I thought I was going to get anything, he would just take off and go to another state," she said.

She described an argument that began shortly after they had closed on their first house.

"That should be a positive thing, shouldn't it?" state Superior Court Judge Jessica Mayer asked.

McGuire agreed, but added that her husband has been behaving "erratically" because of stress brought on by the house hunt and his job.

When Mayer pressed her for details of the fight, McGuire was silent for a moment and then seemed to choke up.

"Miss McGuire, you are safe here. Don't worry, OK?" Mayer said.

"I'm sorry," McGuire replied.

"I know it's emotional," the judge said.

She said they started fighting about the new home, but eventually her husband brought up his dislike of her family and her ability as a mother. She said that when he spied a dryer sheet in a laundry basket with their toddler's clothes, he upbraided her for not remembering to remove it. He shoved the dryer sheet in her mouth, she said.

"He grabbed me by the shoulders, put me up against the wall and basically was not yelling loudly but just very — very menacingly in my face," McGuire told the judge.

She told the judge that she responded with profanities and he slapped her in the face with his open hand. She said she scooped up their 2-year-old son, who was nearby, and hid in the bathroom until her husband left.

She told the judge she was in the process of interviewing divorce attorneys, and her stepfather had set about changing the locks on the doors of the family's apartment.

The judge ruled that there was enough evidence for a temporary restraining order barring her husband from having contact with her, their children or her parents, but urged her to let the police inform her husband about the order.

"Do not take matters into your own hands. You have the protection of the court," Mayer said.

When they charged McGuire with first-degree murder the following year, prosecutors added a count of perjury citing her testimony in family court.

The recording was one of two played Wednesday. Jurors also listened to an audio clip from the last phone conversation the victim is known to have had. A power company recorded William McGuire's call to customer service the evening of April 28.

McGuire, whom prosecutors have referred to as "a regular guy," is heard complaining about the amount of time he was placed on hold and then asking the power company employee to shut off power when the family moves to their new house.

Also Wednesday, a forensic anthropologist testified that marks on William McGuire's bones indicate that a reciprocating power saw with fine teeth and a pointed knife were used to dismember his body.

Melanie McGuire maintains her innocence, and her lawyers have suggested the victim might have been killed because of gambling debts. Friends, including former clinic patients, are helping to fund her defense.

Testimony resumes Thursday morning. The trial is being streamed live on Court TV Extra.