A North Dakota woman will serve 25 years in prison for the poisoning death of her boyfriend, who authorities say believed he was about to come into a large inheritance and had planned to break up with her.
Ina Thea Kenoyer was charged with murder in October 2023 for the death of 51-year-old Steven Riley Jr. Riley was hospitalized and died Sept. 5, 2023, after falling ill and losing consciousness, according to court documents.
An autopsy found he died from ethylene glycol poisoning, according to a Minot police officer’s affidavit. Ethylene glycol is used in antifreeze.
During the sentencing, Riley’s family, including his sister Stephanie Gonzalez, addressed Kenoyer in the courtroom, CBS affiliate KXMB reported.
“As so many other families of victims often feel, the punishment should fit the crime,” Gonzalez told Kenoyer. “But lucky for you the Department of Corrections doesn’t serve antifreeze in your iced tea.”
Kenoyer pleaded guilty in May. State District Judge Richard Hagar on Wednesday accepted attorneys’ joint sentencing recommendation of 50 years in prison – for Kenoyer to serve 25 years, with 25 years suspended – along with 10 years of supervised probation and $3,455 in restitution paid to Riley’s family, The Minot Daily News reported.
She faced up to life in prison without parole on the charge.
Riley’s friends and family contacted Minot police with concerns that Kenoyer had poisoned him with antifreeze, according to the affidavit. His friends told investigators his health rapidly declined at the airport, where he went to meet a lawyer to complete the inheritance transaction, the officer wrote.
Authorities said Kenoyer claimed Riley had been drinking alcohol all day and suffered heat stroke in the days before his death. Kenoyer knew of the inheritance, which she thought was over $30 million and felt she was due a portion of as Riley’s common-law wife, according to the affidavit.
North Dakota does not recognize common-law marriages. Investigators doubted the inheritance existed, according to the newspaper.
Several people in recent months have been accused of using poison to kill their spouse or partner in the U.S. Last October, a poison specialist and former medical resident at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota was charged with fatally poisoning his wife, a 32-year-old pharmacist who died in August.
In May 2023, the author of a children’s book on grief was accused of killing her husband by poisoning him with a lethal dose of fentanyl at their home in Utah. And, in March 2023, a Colorado dentist was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder after police say he laced his wife’s pre-workout shakes with arsenic and cyanide.
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