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Missouri Prosecutor Tells Alleged Husband Killer She Has A 'Cold Heart'
The attorney made the comments because the woman on trial had tried to blame the murder of her husband, a prominent snake dealer, on his brother.
While questioning an accused husband killer, a prosecutor told the defendant that she has a “cold heart” for trying to pin the killing on the deceased’s brother.
Prosecutor Kevin Zoellner made the scathing comment to Lynlee Renick, 33, during his cross-examination of her in a Boone County, Missouri courtroom on Wednesday, Law & Crime reports.
She stands accused of shooting and killing her husband (and prominent snake dealer) Benjamin Renick, 29, 2017. Her alleged co-defendants — former boyfriend Michael Humphrey and Renick employee Ashley Shaw — have already cut deals with the prosecution. Both pointed to Lynlee Renick as the one who pulled the trigger.
But the accused maintains that her ex, Humphrey, shot her husband and that she merely overheard the two men's exchange — despite initially telling police that they should investigate Benjamin Renick’s brother for the murder.
“Do you know what kind of cold heart lies within you?” Zoellner asked the defendant.
The prosecution claims that Lynlee Renick decided to shoot her husband after she failed to kill him by grinding Percocet into a protein shake, and believe that her motive was a $1 million life insurance policy on Benjamin Renick from which she stood to gain. She then allegedly recruited both Shaw and Humphrey for assistance.
On the stand, Lynlee Renick continued to insist that she did not murder her husband, though she testified that she planned to leave him, claiming he raped her. She also admitted to telling Shaw about some of her marital woes and asking Humphrey to be by her side on the day of the murder, but said she did so that she wouldn’t have to be alone when she told her husband she wanted to end things.
“I don’t know how to fully express that I never wanted my husband dead,” she said.
She further testified that, even though she heard gunshots on the day of her husband’s murder, she assumed her husband was OK and left the area with Humphrey.
“I don’t remember thinking about anything,” Renick testified, according to the Columbia Missourian. “I remember at one point I sat up, and I just remembered the trees and rolling the window down and smoking.”
She admitted to lying “a lot” and said she knows it “looks” bad.
"I lied to protect myself and I told a lot of awful lies to do that," she said on the stand.
But she maintained she did not kill her husband, with whom she shared children.
In court on Wednesday, she said that their children should "eventually" know who killed Benjamin Renick — when they are old enough.
Lynlee Renick's fate currently lies with jurors in her case, who continued their deliberations on Thursday, local outlet KMIZ reports.
