True Crime News Roundup: Missouri Man Gets Life In Prison After Killing Pregnant Wife With Mallet

A Missouri man is sentenced for killing his pregnant wife after they fought about his infidelity.

On July 8, a judge sentenced a Missouri man to life without parole for fatally bludgeoning his pregnant wife almost three years ago.

Beau Rothwell, 31, was found guilty in April of murder, tampering with evidence, and abandonment of a corpse in connection to the death of 28-year-old Jennifer Rothwell.

In November 2019, the couple got into an argument over an affair Beau was having. When he refused to tell Jennifer who the other woman was, she told him to keep his mistress and that the baby she was carrying wasn’t his, he testified during trial, People reported.

According to Beau, he descended into a “red haze” and attacked six-weeks-pregnant Jennifer with a mallet, hitting her so hard he believed she “cracked her skull” went “unconscious and fell down the stairs.”

Beau confessed he then dumped his wife’s body 45 minutes from their Creve Coeur home and he unsuccessfully attempted to clean up the crime scene, including a blood-soaked carpet, before calling police to report her missing, KSDK reported.

Prior to her death, Jennifer did an online search for “what to do if your husband is upset you are pregnant,” People reported, citing search warrants.

A paternity test later showed that Jennifer’s unborn baby belonged to her husband.

“Jennifer was a bright light in our lives,” the victim’s mother, Robin Von Hausen, told the court in a video statement at her son-in-law’s recent sentencing. “We thought we would have more than 28 years with her. Gone are the moments of joy with friends and relatives.”

The Alabama inmate who went on the lam with a corrections officer is indicted for her murder.

The inmate who managed to escape an Alabama prison in the spring and go on the run with his corrections officer lover was served an arrest warrant and indicted for her murder, authorities announced on July 12.

The indictment alleges that Casey White “caused the death of Vicky White” after the pair, who were not related, got into a car chase with police in Indiana on May 9, Lauderdale County District Attorney Chris Connolly said in a statement.

After crashing their vehicle, 56-year-old corrections officer Vicky fatally shot herself before police could take her into custody. Casey, 38, surrendered to officers, putting an end to an 11-day manhunt.

On April 29, Vicky, a multi-time employee of the month winner and nearly 20-year veteran of the sheriff’s office in Lauderdale County, invented a non-existent appointment for Casey in order to spring him from jail.

“Being the boss and over the transport, she just informed the booking officer that she was going to carry him to the courthouse and drop him off, which was a flagrant violation of policy,” Sheriff Rick Singleton said.

At the time of his escape, Casey was serving 75-years behind bars in Florence, Alabama, for convictions on charges that included carjacking, kidnapping, and home invasion, The New York Times reported.

He currently faces two counts of capital murder in connection to a 2015 murder-for-hire killing. That trial is set to begin on December 12.

Casey plans to plead not guilty to the new felony murder charge when he is arraigned later this year, his lawyer said.

Two teenagers are accused of murder after beating Pennsylvania man with a traffic cone.

Several juveniles have now turned themselves in to police in connection with the fatal beating of 73-year-old James Lambert in Philadelphia, police said.

According to officials, on July 12, Richard Jones, 14, surrendered to police, and 14-year-old Gamara Mosley turned herself in the following day. The pair, the District Attorney’s Office said, have been charged as adults with third-degree murder and conspiracy in connection with the incident.

Jones’ 10-year-old brother and a 13-year-old girl, who allegedly were present during the attack, also turned themselves in, but both were released without charges, NBC News reported.

Around 2:30 a.m. on the evening of June 24, surveillance video shows seven juveniles — four males and three females — surrounding the victim.

“The teens struck the victim several times with objects,” including a traffic cone, “knocking the victim to the ground causing injuries to his head,” the Philadelphia Police Department said in a statement.

“The victim was transported to the hospital where he died of his injuries the following day,” law enforcement officials added.

Donte Mills, a lawyer for the 13-year-old girl who surrendered and was released without charges, said the situation is “very serious,” and “these children have to be punished because they did something wrong.”

He insisted, however, that “not all of them are the same.”

“My client tried to prevent the group from doing that,” Mills said, according to KYW-TV. “Mr. Lambert interacted with the children and a cone was picked up, a cone was used to assault him. My client, as you can see on the video, tried to grab the cone and stop Mr. Lambert from being assaulted.”

A Michigan family is found dead days after a woman’s petition for an order of protection is denied.

Four people from one family are dead after an apparent murder-suicide in Michigan, police said.

The Roscommon County Sheriff's Department said Tirany Lee Savage, 35, her son Dayton Cowdrey, 13, her mother Kim Lynnette Ebright, 58, and her husband, Bo Eugene Savage, 35, were discovered shot dead in a Houghton Lake home at 3:30 a.m. on July 10.

The sheriff’s department has not released who they believe fired the fatal shots before turning the gun on themselves in the “horrific and senseless tragedy.”

Just under two weeks before the slayings, on June 27, Judge Troy B. Daniel of Michigan’s 34th Circuit Court denied Tirany’s request for a protection order against her spouse, Bo, ruling there was “insufficient evidence” and she could instead “request a restraining order in divorce case,” People reported, citing court documents.

According to the documents, Tirany found out her husband was having an affair and asked him to move out of their home but he refused.

“I left and have been getting texts accusing me of being with other people and he has now been texting my friends threatening them because he thinks they told me to leave him,” Tirany wrote in the personal protection order petition.

She continued, “He is slamming things around the house and calling me names, telling me he won't leave and he wants money. He has mental health issues (he stopped taking his meds) and recently purchased a firearm and that is concerning to me. He keeps saying he is going to blow his brains out and I do not want my safety or my son's safety in jeopardy.”

Tirany reportedly filed for a divorce from Bo three days before she and her family died.

A New York City murder suspect is accused of attacking multiple fellow homeless men over several days.

Prosecutors revealed chilling details about what they said was a homeless man’s alleged “heinous and chilling pattern of violent crimes” across New York City that left one man dead and others wounded.

Trevon Murphy, 40, was charged with one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder and was ordered held without bail on July 14, WPIX reported.

“He targeted vulnerable, defenseless, unhoused victims — all of whom were asleep and had their backs to the defendant,” prosecutors told the court at the hearing. “These individuals, asleep and looking for respite in the only places they could find, were awoken violently when this defendant stabbed them all in the lower abdomen with a large, serrated scoring knife.”

Authorities claimed Murphy allegedly confessed to the grisly crimes and prosecutors claimed the suspect bought a specific knife at a hardware store “because, as he described it, a knife with a flat edge would go in and out easily whereas this knife that he bought would drag pieces of intestine out with it.”

On July 5, Murphy allegedly fatally stabbed a 34-year-old homeless man sleeping in a park in Manhattan’s West Village neighborhood shortly after 3 a.m., prosecutors said.

Three days later, on July 8, he allegedly knifed a 59-year-old who was sleeping on a bench in Midtown around 10 p.m., and on July 10, he is accused of attacking a 28-year-old man asleep on a basketball court on the Upper East Side, according to prosecutors.

The victims in Midtown and the Upper East Side are both expected to survive their injuries.

If convicted of the murder charge, Murphy faces at least 15 years in prison.