An Oregon firefighter was found guilty Tuesday of strangling his wife to make way for his mistress and avoid paying thousands of dollars a month in spousal support.
Kevin West, 52, was convicted of murdering his wife, Marcelle "Marcie" West, after a two-week trial, The Oregonian reported. West's affair with 52-year-old Cynthia Ward was documented during the trial, and prosecutors said that he had calculated that he would owe monthly alimony of $4,500 if he divorced Marcie.
The newspaper reported that West was a battalion chief at Camas-Washogual Fire Department and his wife was an emergency room nurse. In January 2024, West called 911 and said his wife had had a fatal seizure in the middle of the night.
Two months after her death, the medical examiner ruled that the cause of death was asphyxia with "blunt neck force trauma," KOIN-6 reported, leading to West's arrest.
After his wife's death, West got rid of her possessions, including clothes and bedroom furniture. The station reported that West did so without offering the items to their young adult children.
"I do feel like justice was served. There were other ways that he could have handled the situation instead of murdering Marcie. And I feel really bad for the kids. And they lose both parents in this situation," Marcie's friend Wendy Chun told KOIN-6.
Prosecutors said that West blamed his wife for the marriage's problems, despite his ongoing affair, according to The Oregonian.
"The motive is glaringly apparent. The defendant's marriage was deteriorating, and he was blaming Marcie for it," senior prosecutor Jessica E. Smith said during the trial, according to the newspaper. "To call it an affair is a little bit of an understatement — it was an obsession."
