GRAND FALLS-WINDSOR, N.L. - A guide says a Pennsylvania woman who shot and killed her husband almost four years ago during a hunting trip in Newfoundland was hysterical after the shooting.

Mary Beth Harshbarger, 45, who says she thought she was firing at a black bear near Buchans Junction, faces one count of criminal negligence causing death in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Guide Lambert Greene testified at the start of her trial Monday before Justice Richard LeBlanc that he and Mark Harshbarger were making their way back from the brush toward Greene's pickup truck when the shot was fired.

"Mark proceeded on toward the truck. Then I heard a shot. After the shot, I heard a loud scream," he testified.

"I figured they were after shooting a moose or a bear."

But as Greene kept walking, he said he soon reached Mark lying face down on the ground, his coveralls stained with blood.

Greene reddened and paused to collect himself as he described turning Mark over and checking for vital signs.

"There was no sign of life. I got up and I looked towards the truck. Mary Beth was standing up by the side of the truck then. I called out: 'Did you shoot your rifle?' And she said: 'Yes.'

"I said: 'What did you shoot at?'

"She said: 'I shot at a bear. Did I get him?' I said: 'No. You got Mark.' "

Until then, Greene said, the day of hunting had been uneventful.

Greene wasn't sure of the exact time the shot was fired but said it was shortly after sunset.

Mary Beth Harshbarger asked Greene where Mark was, he told the court.

"I said: 'Mark is in there.' She asked me if he was OK. I said: 'No. He's dead.' "

Greene said Mary Beth Harshbarger became "hysterical."

"She danced around the road. 'I shot my husband. I shot my love.' "

He said the couple's little girl, who was four at the time, then got out of the vehicle where she had been waiting with her baby brother.

"I guess she heard us talking," Greene said. "She started crying. Mary Beth took her in her arms, trying to comfort her."

Greene said they all got in the truck and drove to another bear stand nearby where Mark's brother Barry was hunting.

They picked him up and headed back to the lodge but Greene had to drive to a nearby town to contact the RCMP because there was no phone there.

"I told Barry that there had been an accident. And then Mary Beth told him that she had shot Mark," said Greene.

"She was still very, very upset.

"And Barry was really, really upset. He cried."

Harshbarger sipped water, looked down and wiped her eyes as Greene testified.

Mark's father, Lee Harshbarger, dabbed his eyes with tissue during the testimony as his companion, Carol, clutched his hand.

Greene testified that he saw no bear or other animal in the area.

As he came out of the brush where Mark fell, there was an expanse of waist-high grass between him and the truck where Mary Beth Harshbarger stood, he said.

Under cross-examination, Harshbarger's defence lawyer Karl Inder asked Greene if he knew where the scream had come from.

"I don't know," Greene said.

Inder asked the guide of eight years whether the scream could have come from a wounded bear.

Greene said he could not be sure what made the sound just after the shot rang out.

If convicted, Harshbarger faces a penalty of four years to life in prison.

The Crown is expected to call 16 witnesses during the trial, which is scheduled for two weeks.

Mark Harshbarger died Sept. 14, 2006, a few weeks shy of his 43rd birthday.

Lee Harshbarger recalled in an interview how Mark wanted to visit Newfoundland every year to hunt after his father brought back "a nice bull moose" in 1997. He fondly described his son as about six-foot-two and 215 pounds, the youngest of his five children.

"We hunted, we fished, we camped. And if ever I needed help with anything I would give him a call and he was always there. He would drop what he was doing and come and help me."

Mark's death "was the worst thing that ever happened to me in my 77 years," he said.

"I do think about him many times. I just can't understand how something like this could happen where a man could be mistaken for a bear. A man walks in an upright position. A bear walks on all fours."

RCMP staged two re-enactments of events two days after the shooting and one year later. Officers concluded it was too dark to safely fire a rifle and that it's plausible Harshbarger thought she was looking at a bear, according to U.S. District Court extradition documents.