AP News, March 6th, 2007
A woman accused of orchestrating the killings of her husband and ex-husband in 2001 pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a deal that spares her the possibility of the death penalty.
Linda Lou Charbonneau, whose initial conviction and death sentence had been thrown out by the state Supreme Court, pleaded guilty Monday in the death of ex-husband John Charbonneau.
The plea deal came during her second trial after a key prosecution witness _ Charbonneau's daughter _ refused to testify.
Charbonneau, 59, could receive up to 20 years in prison at sentencing in May. As part of the deal, the charges involving the death of her husband, William Sproates III, were dropped.
"We felt like we had a fighting chance for an acquittal," defense attorney Thomas Pederson told The (Wilmington) News Journal. "But we didn't feel like we could take that chance."
John Charbonneau, 62, and Sproates, 45, both vanished in fall 2001. Sproates' body was found buried in the back yard of Charbonneau's home near Bridgeville. He had been stabbed several times. Charbonneau's body was found the following summer about 20 miles away. Authorities said he had been bludgeoned to death.
Prosecutors described a convoluted tale. They said Linda Lou Charbonneau was living with her ex-husband, John, though married at the time to Sproates, John's nephew. They said money disputes were the motive for the killings and that Charbonneau persuaded her daughter, Mellisa Rucinski, and future son-in-law, Willie Brown, to help her.
The defense said the younger couple was to blame for the killings. Brown, who carried out the murders, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Rucinski is serving 25 years.
When Rucinski refused to testify at the retrial, the judge added an additional five months for contempt of court, said her lawyer, John Sandy.
"Mellisa was tired of it," he said.
William Sproates' brother David was upset with the plea bargain. "My brother died for nothing," he told The News Journal. "We feel it wasn't fair to the victims. ... I just feel there was no justice whatsoever."
When Charbonneau was sentenced to death after the first trial, authorities said she would be the first woman sent to death row in Delaware since May Carey was hanged in 1935 for getting two of her sons to help her kill her brother.
