A Missouri prison nurse reportedly poisoned her husband with antifreeze and set their shared home ablaze in an attempt to cover up the crime. It was part of an elaborate plot to be with her lover, a convicted murderer and inmate at the prison she worked at.
46-year-old Amy Murray entered an Alford plea, under which the defendant maintains their innocence whilst acknowledging that the prosecution possesses evidence sufficient to convict them, to charges of second-degree arson and tampering with evidence on Wednesday, according to PEOPLE magazine.
Murray was ultimately sentenced to 12 years in prison for the murder charge, seven years for the arson charge and four years for the tampering with evidence charge. However, the sentences for the arson charge and tampering with evidence charge are to be served consecutively and concurrently with the years of prison time sentenced for the murder charge.
The death of 37-year-old Joshua Murray, which occurred in 2018, was initially believed to be the result of a house fire, but was ruled a homicide after a medical examiner found elevated amounts of antifreeze in his system. He passed in the home he shared with his wife and son in Iberia.
Furthermore, new details of the case emerged when the State Fire Marshal's Office and the Miller County Sheriff's Department determined that an accelerant had been used to start the fire.
Murray had been in the residence about half an hour before the blaze and left with their 11-year-old son and their two dogs before the fire grew.
Murray was arrested three months after the incident, in February of 2019. At the time of her husband's death and her arrest, she had been having an affair with Jefferson City Correctional Center inmate Eugene Claypool, who was incarcerated at the facility she worked at.
Police reviewed phone calls between Claypool and Murray, which were all recorded since he was incarcerated. They said Murray told Claypool she didn't want to "be around her husband" and that she planned to marry Claypool once her husband was "out of the picture," according to reporting by ABC 6.
