Life Insurance Fraud—North Carolina

Amount: $600,000

In a highly publicized case featured by national news shows such as 20/20, 48 Hours, Mystery, and Dateline, a verdict was handed down at the beginning of August 2017, convicting a wife and father-in-law of second-degree murder for life insurance money.

Prosecutors pointed to the wife's desire to adopt the victim's children and the large life insurance policy payout as motives for the murder, while the defense argued that it was a case of self-defense and defense of others after many incidents of abuse over their years of marriage.

After an altercation between the married couple, which also involved the father-in-law, ending in the victim being bludgeoned to death by a metal baseball bat and a concrete brick, the two stalled on calling 911. When the paramedics were finally alerted to the incident and arrived on scene, they noticed that the father-in-law had no blood on his hands or clothing despite claiming to have just performed 400 chest pumps on the blood-soaked body of his son-in-law. The body of the victim was also described as “cool” when the paramedics arrived on scene, indicating that a significant amount of time had passed since he had died.

The jury agreed unanimously that the father-in-law had committed second-degree murder, but was in deliberation for three hours determining if the wife had an intent to kill her husband. The verdict in the end was guilty, and the two will be sentenced at a later date.