LAWRENCE, Mass. (Court TV) — The cross-dressing dermatologist who claims he was insane when he killed his estranged wife told a rapt courtroom Thursday that he first donned women's clothing as a young teenager coping with an abusive father.

"I saw my sister's clothes in the hamper ... I actually put them on and sat in the corner of the bathroom and felt more relaxed and safer dressed like that," Dr. Richard Sharpe testified. A short time later, he said, he was buying his own dresses and going out in public in drag.

The millionaire physician, who faces life in prison without parole if the jury rejects his insanity defense, gave the account during nearly three hours on the stand. Speaking in a flat tone with his eyes often squeezed shut and his long, alabaster hands partially obscuring his face, Sharpe recounted the peaks and frequent valleys of his 26-year marriage to high school sweetheart Karen Sharpe.

His critical testimony of her death — from a single shotgun blast to the chest — is expected Friday when he resumes the stand. He contends long-standing mental problems rendered him insane during the July 14, 2000, shooting, but prosecutors maintain he was angry that his wife had left him and feared she would make off with their $5 million savings.

The popular doctor's secret life of fishnet stockings and shoulder-length wigs was splashed across local papers after Sharpe was arrested for his wife's killing, and when he took the stand, the courtroom gallery quickly filled with curious locals. All 16 jurors initially paid close attention to his testimony, but as the day wore on three male panelists stopped looking toward the witness stand, and two of them consistently stared at the floor.

Sharpe took the stand after testimony from seven witnesses, including his three siblings. The defense hoped the witnesses would paint Sharpe as a severely abused child who grew into a mentally disturbed man not responsible for his crime, but their testimony was unexpectedly brief and seemed to mostly benefit the prosecution. All three Sharpe children, Robert, Ben and Laurie, acknowledged that their father heaped insults and occasional punches on their brother, but each offered anecdotes that showed Richard Sharpe as more jerk than psychotic.

His oldest brother, Robert Sharpe, testified that his father once hit him repeatedly with a fireplace poker, but he also recounted a 1978 incident at his home when Richard became furious that his wife brought Kentucky Fried Chicken instead of Burger King take-out.

"He took the whole bucket [of chicken] and threw it against my living room wall," said Robert Sharpe.

Middle brother Ben said he once had to throw Sharpe out of his restaurant after he caused problems on New Year's Eve.

He was "very unstable. If somebody did something he didn't like, he was very on edge to attack," Ben Sharpe testified.

His sister, Laurie Monopoli, said her brother called his tender-hearted mother a "slut" and "scumbag," and once urinated in his brother's wine bottle and then recorked it.

Their testimony put Sharpe's defense largely in his own hands and those of psychiatric experts who will follow him to the stand. The 47-year-old doctor had to be frequently reminded by Judge Christine McEvoy not to ramble as he described his childhood in Shelton, Conn., and his marriage at age 18 to Karen Hatfield. He said his father, a toolmaker who liked to gamble, insulted him daily with "every permutation and combination of profanity you can imagine."

"He despised his kids except for Laurie," Sharpe testified. He said it was his father's treatment of his sister that led him to begin cross-dressing. On some level, he said, he felt that as a woman he wouldn't be subject to his father's invectives.

Sharpe spent the bulk of his turn on the stand recalling his relationship with Karen, the mother of his three children. The pair met in high school and married, against her parents' wishes, after the birth of daughter Shannon, now 27. He sounded proud as he told jurors how the couple had not let teenage parenthood prevent them from education or wealth. Karen Sharpe became a nurse and her husband earned a master's degree in engineering before going to medical school, where he excelled. He said he always held multiple jobs to make ends meet, and at one point worked 90 hours a week.

He said he and his wife fought verbally and "threw things at each other" throughout their marriage. In 1991, he testified, he walked in on Karen Sharpe with another man and attacked her with a fork. Immediately after the fight, he was involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

"Most of the time when it became physical it was about infidelity on one side or another or suspected infidelity," said Sharpe, who admitted several affairs of his own.

The doctor said, however, the couple was at their best during the lean years.

"My happiest memories are when we sat down in the kitchen and counted the change in the bowl and would use it to go to the movies or something," he said. That testimony may haunt Sharpe. Prosecutors say a key motive for the killing was the doctor's concern his wife was stealing their finances, and Sharpe's two outbursts during the trial have come when prosecutors hinted at the money motive. At the time his wife left him, Sharpe and his family were flush with two homes, a condominium and millions in stocks and securities — according to Sharpe, not a recipe for good time in their marriage.

Late Thursday afternoon, Sharpe began testifying about "major emotional disturbances" he experienced after his wife took their two younger children, Michael, 9, and Alexandra, 5, and moved out. He said he was so depressed that he laid off the staff at his medical office because he could not move.

"I was not sleeping during this time. I was on Xanax and I was taking antidepressants," he said.

He testified that he became convinced his wife was cheating on him with a man she had hired to oversee construction on her new house after overhearing a conversation at a local Dunkin' Donuts.

"I heard several workmen talking about their boss who was 'porking the rich bitch,'" he said. "I sort of put two and two together."

Shannon Sharpe's fiance, seated in the front row, shook his head in disgust at that accusation.