A woman in New York has been accused of shooting her husband in order to avoid going through “a contentious divorce”.
In November 2013, a real estate developer was asleep in his marital home when he was woken up by an intense pain in his jaw. He had apparently received a gunshot to the base of his skull from an antique derringer pistol.
He originally thought he had been shot by an intruder, but when police went back to the home they found the wife, a psychologist for the New York Police Department (NYPD), washing bloody clothes. Shortly thereafter, a pair of derringers were found, one of which had been fired.
In a subsequent lawsuit against her, the husband alleged that his wife was having a long-standing affair with another man.
He claimed that the wife’s reason for shooting him was so that she could “keep the marital home and never admit the marital infidelity to any family or friends”. The lawsuit also alleges assault, battery and emotional distress.
The couple was still living together at the time of the shooting and continued to do so afterwards, despite the wife filing for divorce and the husband living in fear of “another (this time successful) attack”.
The wife’s lawyer called the allegations “baseless”, “outrageous”, and the result of a “husband who is furious that his wife has filed for divorce”.
She has been officially charged with attempted murder and has been suspended from her job at the NYPD.
In a similar case back in 2013, a woman told an undercover detective posing as a hitman that killing her husband would be easier than getting a divorce.
There have been similar cases here where the assailant was not found to have no claim – as you might expect. You will probably remember better than I the one I am thinking of where a woman who did something of the sort had her “needs” after release met out of the assets after trying to inherit the lot!