It was about 1:15 a.m. on November 16, 2012, when a 19-year-old Ohio woman repeatedly stabbed and cut a woman in her bed with a knife from her own kitchen. Police arrived to find the younger woman still in the house, and she never claimed that she did not kill the woman. About nine months after the woman’s death, the victim’s husband was faced with felony charges in connection with her death.
The Ohio woman who had killed his wife claimed that they had a sexual relationship. She further claimed that the day before the murder, he had a confrontation with his wife and claimed he would take his own life if his wife lived. The prosecution contended that this meant that the man used the younger woman’s feelings in order to persuade her to kill his wife.
As part of the circumstantial evidence of this conspiracy, prosecutors point to the voluminous amount of text messages between the two on the night his wife was killed. Prosecutors did not have the actual texts, just the number of texts. The man was convicted of the crimes with which he was charged and faces life in prison.
His counsel intends to appeal the convictions because the judge denied him the right to introduce evidence of and discuss the killer’s mental state. He also suspects that the woman agreed to testify in exchange for the possibility of parole in 37 years. A date for the sentencing hearing has not yet been set. If the appeal is successful and the convictions for the felony charges are not upheld, this man may get a second chance to plead his case.
Source: cleveland.com, “Kevin Knoefel murder trial: Knoefel convicted on all counts“, Karen Farkas, June 12, 2014