SALEM – Jurors selected Monday will decide whether Kathie DeFelice, the Lynn woman accused of stabbing her former boyfriend to death in her Lynn apartment two years ago, acted in self-defense because of suffering from battered women’s syndrome.Eight potential jurors were selected Monday to sit on the trial after 54 were screened. A panel of 14 will be chosen, including two alternates, to sit on the expected two-week trial in Salem Superior Court with Judge David A. Lowy presiding over the trial.Opening statements are expected to take place some time today after the entire 14-member jury panel is chosen.DeFelice, 48, who last lived at 27 Union St., in Lynn, is charged with first-degree murder in the killing of 55-year-old William H. Olsen, II, of Danvers on or about Oct. 31, 2006.On the night of Olsen’s death, DeFelice, who had a restraining order out against Olsen requiring him to stay away and have no contact with her, called police from a pay phone at the Stop & Shop in Vinnin Square in Swampscott, about two miles from her apartment.She dialed the police directly, not a 911 call, telling authorities she had been attacked by her boyfriend.When police arrived about 2:30 a.m., they apparently observed some injuries to DeFelice’s neck and forehead. She told police that Olsen had attacked her and suggested they check on him because she had stabbed him with a small knife.When they went to her apartment, they found Olsen, dead, slumped over on a love seat and a knife, believed to be the murder weapon, was found at his feet.There reportedly was no sign of any struggle taking place, but empty beer cans and an empty bottle of wine were apparently found in the apartment.Olsen had been dead for hours, police said, with the body showing signs of rigor mortis.Assistant District Attorney Kate B. MacDougall and co-assistant Maureen Leal Wilson, contend DeFelice stabbed Olsen intentionally and with malice.Her defense will center around battered women’s syndrome, her attorney Edward Hayden has said.The couple met in the summer of 1998 and had what was described as a stormy relationship throughout marked by frequent separations when DeFelice would reportedly go from sleeping in her car to a shelter. At one point they had lived together at Olsen’s home on North Putnam Street in Danvers.A restraining order was granted to DeFelice in 2005 when Olsen apparently put his arm around her neck. It was then extended for another year.MacDougall is expected to introduce documentation that although DeFelice sought a restraining order, she made several phone calls to Olsen, but that the calls never were reciprocated by Olsen during that time frame.On the night of the murder, Olsen went to her apartment on Union Street, but it is not exactly known what led to the stabbing.The commonwealth has listed some 35 potential witnesses and the defense 16 potential witnesses. The list includes numerous police officers from Lynn, Beverly, Swampscott and Danvers, along with medical experts on battered women’s syndrome, including an employee from Help for Abused Women and their Children (HAWC).A conviction on first-degree murder would put DeFelice in prison for life, without the possibility of parole. A conviction on second-degree murder also carries a life sentence, but would make her eligible for parole after serving 15 years. If jurors are allowed to consider a manslaughter as a possible verdict, she could receive up to 20 years in prison.DeFelice was indicted on the first-degree murder charge by an Essex County grand jury in December 2006 and has been held at Framingham Prison for Women without bail, since pleading innocent.