Ann Marie Anastasi, 43, was engaged in a bizarre love triangle.She was living under the same roof with her husband and his mistress. But unfortunately for her, it soon became clear the younger lover was becoming the bigger attraction for her husband.
Ann Marie and Anthony had five children, and lived in a rented home in Lothian, Maryland. The couple and their lover Jacqueline Riggs, 25, had enjoyed a few months of sexual happiness, before Anthony moved Jacqueline into their marital home, in summer 2015.
Within weeks things had soured. The fun was over and Ann Marie could see her 18-year marriage slipping away. Anthony often abandoned his wife to have sex with Jacqueline in the basement bedroom, leaving Ann Marie heartbroken. Suddenly she was pushed out, and as she realised their marriage was over, tensions mounted.
A scorned wife
On 5 October 2015, Ann Marie called 911 and reported the shock suicide of her husband. She claimed she’d found his body when she’d returned from the grocery store. When officers arrived, they found Anthony dead from a gunshot wound to the head in the couple’s master bedroom. A gun was on the bed beside him.
But when they searched the rest of the house, they made a second discovery. Jacqueline was dead in the bedroom in the basement. She’d been brutally stabbed to death – she had 42 knife wounds. The pair had both been dead for several hours.
Officers quickly realised there was something unusual going on. When interviewed at the station, Ann Marie insisted that her husband had killed himself. When she was told about Jacqueline, Ann Marie seemed surprised. She then revealed she’d overheard her husband and his lover arguing the night before. She suggested Anthony, who she accused of being prone to violence, had stabbed his live-in lover to death before taking his own life. But police weren’t convinced it was a murder-suicide.
Things just didn’t add up. The first thing that disputed Ann Marie’s theory was the gun found next to Anthony’s body. It didn’t match the bullet he’d been killed with. How had a man killed himself, then swapped the weapon he used? Tests revealed that Ann Marie was covered in gunshot residue. But investigators needed more evidence.
They delved into phone records, where they came across some disturbing messages between Ann Marie, her teenage daughter and her daughter’s 18-year-old boyfriend Gabriel Struss. The messages talked about a handgun and the ‘murder of two individuals’.
Police pieced together the plot orchestrated by a jealous and vengeful scorned wife. The messages suggested that Ann Marie and her daughter had convinced Gabriel to kill for them. Incredibly, Gabriel had shot Anthony in the head as he slept, then stabbed Jacqueline to death. While he’d committed the acts, it was clear he wasn’t the mastermind.
In June 2016, as part of a plea deal, Gabriel pleaded guilty to the killings and was sentenced to 60 years in prison. He was described as ‘weak-minded’ and the court heard that he’d been manipulated to commit the acts, despite having no criminal record. He’d been raised on the streets until he was seven and had been treated for depression.
Ann was sentenced to serve 60 years in prison. Her daughter is currently in a juvenile detention centre.
Culled from Daily Mirror
No comments:
Post a Comment