Della Faye Hall Hoeffer Beyer Bassett Britteon Sutorius (born Della Faye Hall, August 8, 1950 - November 20, 2010) was an American woman who was convicted of murdering her husband in 1996.

Murder

Dr. Darryl Sutorius was found dead in the basement of the house he shared with his wife on February 19, 1996. Though it was clear that a gunshot to the head had been the cause of death, authorities were initially unsure whether his death was homicide or suicide.

Sutorius's wife, Della, was arrested the same day when investigating police found a supply of cocaine. Though released on bail the next day, Mrs. Sutorius was re-arrested on February 27 when it was determined that she had purchased the weapon that had killed her husband and gunshot residue tests and autopsy results indicated that she had been the one who fired the weapon on the day of Sutorius's death. This time the charge was aggravated murder with prior calculation.

Investigation and trial

Investigation into the background of Della Sutorius showed that the death of Sutorius, her fifth husband, was not the first time Della Sutorius had been associated with violence. Sutorius's third husband alleged that she had repeatedly threatened to kill him during their marriage; after the couple divorced, she was charged with threatening another man, this time a boyfriend, with a gun. One husband had found knives hidden around the house he shared with her and had been surprised when she told him she "could kill you", while her fourth husband told investigators that she was mentally abusive and he feared her to the point of hiding the bullets to his gun to prevent her from being able to use them.

Hamilton County, Ohio prosecutor Joe Deters theorized that Della Sutorius had "a serious problem with rejection" after colleagues of her husband reported that shortly before his death, Darryl Sutorius had been considering filing for divorce. According to her sister Donna Hall, Sutorius's approach to men had long been colored by monetary gain: "She said you find a wealthy man and, when they die, you'd get their money".

Sutorius declined to take the stand in her own defense at her trial. Though her lawyers argued that police had failed to prove that Darryl Sutorius's death was anything but suicide and that his wife's statements to police had not been preceded by a Miranda warning, she was convicted on June 7, 1996, with the jury deliberating for fewer than five hours before finding her guilty of aggravated murder. Later the same month, she was sentenced to more than twenty years in prison: twenty years for the murder, three because a gun was used in the crime, and eighteen months on drug charges.

After conviction

Della Sutorius appealed her conviction in the spring of 1997, claiming that the trial jury having been allowed to hear hearsay evidence of statements her dead husband had made and that prosecutors had made improper comments to the jury. The appeal was declined in June of the same year and Sutorius returned to serving her sentence at the Ohio Reformatory for Women.

In order to defray the costs of prosecuting Sutorius, the Hamilton County Sheriff's department seized and auctioned off Sutorius's 11-piece jewelry collection. Despite the coverage the press devoted to the auction, bidders failed to meet the minimum necessary total for the pieces to sell separately and the lot was sold for a $5,100 lump sum.

Death

According to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, Della Sutorius died of natural causes at the Ohio Reformatory for Women on November 20, 2010, where Sutorius had been serving her life sentence since her conviction. She was 60 years old. Sutorius would have been eligible for parole in 2013.

In media

Della Sutorius's dramatic history with her husbands and the public perception of her as a being "black widow" attracted high levels of coverage from the press; her lawyer, ex-husbands, and ex-boyfriends were all reportedly approached by talk show hosts and news broadcasts such as Geraldo Rivera and Hard Copy. A spokeswoman for the Sally Jessy Raphael talk show Sally, which also pursued the story, explained that the case was "highly dramatic" and would be of appeal to daytime television watchers. Despite jury selection being slowed down by already-widespread news coverage of the case, CourtTV was permitted to televise coverage of the May 1996 trial. A 2010 episode of Dateline NBC covered the case in detail, interviewing Sutorius's family and friends as well as people who had been involved in her legal cases.

Crime reporter Aphrodite Jones covered Sutorius's case in her 2011 book Della's Web; Her case was featured in 2005 on the Oxygen Network series Snapped, and the Investigation Discovery series Deadly Women and Fatal Vows.

Wikipedia.org

"Black Widow" Della Sutorius Dies In Ohio Prison

By Hansen Sinclair - AHN News Reporter

December 31, 2010

Cincinnati, OH, United States (AHN) – The woman once branded the “The Black Widow” for murdering her husband has died in prison, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

The department announced the death of Della Sutorius Wednesday. She died Nov. 20 of natural causes at the Marysville Women’s Prison at the age of 60.

Sutorius was convicted of aggravated murder in the death of her husband, Darryl Sutorius, 55, a heart surgeon. He was found dead in the couple’s basement with a gunshot wound to the head in February 1996, reports stated. A gun bought by his wife two days earlier was found near the body.

At her trial, prosecutors argued Sutorius killed her husband because he planned to divorce her. She had been divorced four times already, according to reports. However, defense attorneys contended her husband committed suicide.

A jury found her guilty, and she was sentenced to life in prison.

She would have been eligible for her first parole hearing in 2013.

Appeals court: 'Black widow' must stay in Marysville

By Dan Horn - The Cincinnati Post

June 26, 1997

One year after Della Dante Sutorius went to prison for murdering her surgeon husband, the so-called ''black widow'' has lost her bid for freedom.

The Ohio 1st District Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Mrs. Sutorius received a fair trial in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court and should remain behind bars for the murder of Dr. Darryl Sutorius.

In their 23-page decision, the appeals court judges decided that any errors during the trial were ''harmless in light of the substantial evidence of guilt.''

A jury convicted Mrs. Sutorius in June 1996 after concluding she shot Dr. Sutorius once in the head as he slept on a basement couch.

The verdict ended a three-week trial that drew national media attention to Mrs. Sutorius and her long history of turbulent, sometimes violent, relationships.

During the trial before Judge Richard Niehaus, prosecutors contended Mrs. Sutorius killed her husband and then tried to make it look like suicide so she could collect a nearly $1 million pension plan.

Defense attorneys argued that the doctor killed himself after enduring a long bout of depression over the demise of his marriage.

Mrs. Sutorius' attorneys returned to court earlier this year to argue that errors by the judge and prosecutors creat ed bias among jurors and made it impossible for her to get a fair trial.

The appeals judges agreed that, on at least one occasion, the judge failed to exclude improper testimony made by a witness who claimed to have heard Dr. Sutorius discuss how his wife threatened to kill him.

But the judges said there was a great deal of additional, proper testimony that could help jurors reach a fair verdict.

''We cannot say that the erroneous admission of hearsay testimony . . . prejudiced Sutorius to the extent that she was denied a fair trial,'' the court ruled.

In earlier arguments before the appeals court, defense attorney Elizabeth Agar said the emotional impact of such statements had a significant impact in a case that relied heavily on circumstantial evidence. The defense also had contended prosecutors improperly commented to jurors about Mrs. Sutorius' failure to testify at the trial. But the appeals court found no evidence of misconduct by prosecutors. Mrs. Sutorius, 46, is serving a sentence of 20 years to life at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville.