This is a follow-up to a previously shared true crime. I shared in July 2022 titled, Pure Evil. I included a link to that case.
They were high school sweethearts who went in different directions after high school. He joined the army and became a decorated Army soldier retiring with a purple heart, a bronze star, and a traumatic brain injury. She married twice and worked as a speech therapist.
Two years after he and his wife separated, he thought about his high school sweetheart and looked her up on the internet—he found her on LinkedIn and messaged her. She messaged back. Over time, their messages became more intimate.
One month into their online relationship that she called “a full-blown emotional affair,” she began grooming her high school sweetheart to kill her husband. She revealed that her husband had found out about their relationship and was abusing her. Ratcheting up the seriousness of her alleged abuse, she shared stock photos from the internet portraying her injuries to strengthen her cries for help.
For the next seven-months, the two communicated over 116,000 times—averaging over 500 times a day.
She used two phony email accounts to communicate with her high school sweetheart. On one she pretended to be her husband who supposedly knew about the online relationship and detailed ways he was abusing his wife—it was her emailing the high school sweetheart all along, not her husband.
What he didn’t know about her was that she had faked spousal abuse with her first husband to snare her second husband. The plan for husband #2 was to take place on her 15th wedding anniversary with her second husband. Her high school sweetheart drove 600 miles to her home and waited outside their home for the couple to walk their dog.
When the couple emerged from their home, the high school sweetheart shot and killed the husband. Then, to make it look like a robbery, he roughed her a little and stole her wedding ring.
Unfortunately for criminals, but fortunately for law enforcement, many homeowners had security cameras mounted on their homes. Cameras caught a truck with a distinct sticker on the back window driving out of the neighborhood after the shooting.
When law enforcement looked through the widow’s cell phone, they retrieved her deleted text messages between the high school sweethearts and looked at the “other man.” His truck matched the one in the home security footage and had an identical sticker on the back window.
Executing a search warrant at the man’s home produced the weapon used in the shooting. They arrested him. He told them about her abuse and all the things she had told him. He also provided enough information about her plot to have him kill her husband that they arrested her. The revelation that she’d made up the abuse took the man a while to believe. He believed she loved him and that her life was in danger.
An assistant U.S. attorney associated with the case, said,
“There were other avenues he could take besides driving across multiple states and murdering someone in cold blood.”
The 51-year-old man opted for a jury trial. After one hour of deliberation, the jury found him guilty of murder. It took them longer to decide his sentence—sentencing him to 62-years in prison.
Previously shared: The 49-year-old widow accepted a plea deal. As part of the deal, she had to publicly state that her deceased husband had NOT abused her. The judge sentenced her to life in federal prison (there is no early release in the federal prison system). The judge also ordered her pay restitution to her late husband’s family to cover funeral expenses and to pay a fine of $250,000.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Dallas District Attorney, NBC News, Law & Crime
All data and information provided is for information and research purposes only and not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. Criminal cases may have been appealed or verdicts overturned since I researched the case. All information is provided on an as-is basis.
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