The acid lady: she dissolved her husband so as not to share his fortune | the Chronicle

Larissa Foreman is an American murderer who was sentenced in 2008 to life without parole for the crime of her ex-husband Timothy Schuster in 2003, which she dissolved in acid.

“The acid lady” As the media have dubbed her, she grew up on a small farm in the town of Clarence and her childhood developed normally, just like anyone else’s.

Soon after, it was time to start studying and that is why he left his parents and settled near the University of Missouri.

To stay, he fought him like few others and working in a retirement home known to Schuster, with whom, after being together for a while, he married and the fruit of this love, three years later, they had Kristin, their first daughter.

Soon after, the young woman gave birth to Tyler and moved to Fresno, California. There, Larissa got a job in an agricultural research laboratory and It worked so well that he opened his own, which he called Central California Research Labs.

Thanks to this income which has multiplied day by day, the family was able to move to a house in Glovis and has just started in 2001., she earned double Tim’s annual salary.

Divorce: the start of the scandal

Life as a couple was far from its best and Larissa decided to file for a divorce, expects a positive response from her husband, but it was controversial. The custody fights for her son Tyler began and there was no problem other than the division of the commons.

Tim finally made up his mind to leave the house but in August 2002 a scandal erupted when his ex-wife and James Fagone, his lab assistant, prevented him from entering to collect his things.

To what has been stated of the cause, she said Terri lopez, one of her best friends: “I want my husband dead.” “I could do it and get away with it,” she told him.

Timothy Schuster’s Dilemma of Disappearance and Confession

Tim, on July 10, 2003, was going to meet a colleague for breakfast, but never reached the destination. A few hours later, he was supposed to visit his son, but he didn’t either.

Right now All eyes were on Larissa, but when she was first questioned by the Clovis Police Department, she wasn’t even charged with anything.

Larissa Foreman far from suffering from the search for the father of her children, he took a vacation to Disney with the boys, then to Missouri.

But upon his arrival, the agents had already contacted James Fagone, who broke under questioning and told the whole truth.

Jacques oneHe admitted that on the night of July 9, 2003, they both took Tim out of his house and that Larissa was the one who used chloroform and a stun gun in the act and then dumped his body, still alive, in a barrel and tried to dissolve it with hydrochloric acid.

Immediately she was arrested and charged with first degree murder while on the run at the St. Louis airport.

The Fagone trial

During the process, his defense was that Larissa was the mastermind of Timothy’s murder and that he only has made himself an accomplice under duress, stating that he had threatened to kill him.

Several colleagues have testified in this regard and stated that the “murderous” She was a very controlling person who wouldn’t let you say no to what she offered.

But when the jurors saw the video where James says: “I held the keg for her, put it in, poured all the solution and she couldn’t stand it. So she said put the lid on. So I helped her put it on. the cover and she put it in the shed, “ He hasn’t had much luck with anything.

The bright spot for him is that he was acquitted of the victim’s kidnapping, despite being convicted of first degree murder despite indulgences to the jury. This led to a life sentence without parole.

It was the process against Larissa

It all started on October 22, 2007, about 4 years after her indictment but the legal process moved to Los Angeles due to the repercussion she had in the media she was already talking about “The Lady of Acid”.

The evidence against them was overwhelming, in particular the telephone messages and the depositions of witnesses on the complaints which he had permanently towards his companion, one of which was recorded on an answering machine.

Fagone did not testify at her trial and she decided to testify in self-defense, while her lawyer admitted that his client had not made good decisions but that he was not guilty of what he was accused of.

Once it was his turn to speak, he put all the blame on Fagone and even said he heard her say that “There was an accident and Tim died”, but seconds later, she admitted that she had moved her husband’s body.

“This is something I’m really ashamed of. You have to understand that this is something … the result of a lot of cumulative things,” Tenuous.

He also clarified that theDue to the large amounts of chemicals in his lab, it was not for the murder of Timothy Schuster, but for a bulk clean-up of items in the lab.

Maybe no apology changed the jury’s idea and She was convicted of first degree murder with the special circumstance of loss of earnings and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Declaration of her daughter Kristin

At her sentencing hearing, her daughter Kristin gave a victim impact statement: “You have given up all your rights as a mother, wife, daughter, friend and wife. You are a disgrace to this family, a sorry excuse for a human being. I pray that you are continually obsessed at night with the sight and sound of my father struggling for his last breaths on this earth. I hope you turn around and have horrible nightmares as you visualize the horrible act of violence you have committed. “

Where are Larissa and Fagone serving their sentence

For a while, Schuster is serving his sentence at the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, while Fagone does so in Calipatria, also California.

In February 2011, Larissa’s murder conviction was upheld by the California Fifth District Court of Appeals.