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Massachusetts Mom Found Dead in Basement Covered in Blood and Paint, and Shocking Suspect Charged
Annamarie Cochrane Rintala, a paramedic and dedicated mom, had been strangled to death and had lacerations to her head. Strangely, she was also covered in light-colored paint.
On the evening of March 29, 2010, Annamarie Cochrane Rintala, a paramedic and dedicated mom, was found dead at the bottom of the basement stairs in her Granby, Massachusetts, home, covered in blood and paint.
When police arrived, they found Annamarie’s wife Cara Rintala cradling the 37-year-old and screaming, “She’s dead, I can’t believe she’s dead,” according to the “Down the Basement Stairs" episode of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered.
Annamarie had been strangled to death and had lacerations to her head. Strangely, she was also covered in light-colored paint.
“[There was] paint all over the place, all over this female,” Gary Poehler, a sergeant with the Granby Police Department, told Dateline.
It would take time for investigators to piece together the unusual clues left behind at the crime scene, and take even longer to find justice for the slain mom.
"That was tough," Pasquale Martin, Annamarie's uncle, told Dateline. "To have somebody rob somebody from you, steal, take, murder, to just rip them from the world... [It's] hard to fathom, hard to swallow."
Who was Annamarie Cochrane Rintala?
By all accounts, Annamarie was always the life of the party, happily stepping in to be the emcee at a party or to belt out a song. “Like, that was Ann, if she could have celebrated every day, she would have celebrated every day,” her former sister-in-law Jen Cochrane told Dateline.
As a paramedic, Annamarie thrived in the fast-paced setting where she could use her never-ending energy and bright spirit to help others. It was on the job that she met fellow paramedic Cara Rintala and the two began a passionate — and sometimes tumultuous — romance.
In many ways, Cara was Annamarie’s opposite. She countered Annamarie’s more spontaneous personality with her own calm demeanor.
“She had a plan, always had a plan, was very conscious of where she was headed in life,” Cara’s stepfather Carl Montagna recalled.
The two eventually got married in Massachusetts, in one of the first official same-sex marriages in the country. Shortly after tying the knot, they adopted a baby daughter, Brianna, together.
The day Annamarie Cochrane Rintala died
But their life together would be cut short on March 29, 2010. According to Cara, Annamarie got home that morning from an overnight shift at around 8:30 a.m.
Cara later told police that the two had coffee, played with their young daughter and had lunch together, before Annamarie asked Cara to take Brianna out in the afternoon so that she could nap before another overnight shift.
Cara said she left the home around 3 p.m. with her daughter to run some errands at the mall. Cara added that they stopped at McDonald’s and then changed their minds and went to Burger King before returning home and finding Annamarie lying at the bottom of the basement stairs.
“I didn’t know what to do. I was just — I wanted to scream,” Cara told police. “I wanted to run down there, but I didn’t want to freak Brianna out. I didn’t know. So — I ran out of the house.”
After taking Brianna to a neighbor’s home, she returned home and ran to Annamarie, Cara said, cradling her “cold” body in her arms until police arrived.
“This is nothing like I’ve ever been trained for. I’ve never — I’ve never experienced anything like this,” Cara told authorities.
Annamarie Cochrane Rintala's complicated love life
At the time of Annamarie’s death, her love life had been complicated.
Investigators discovered that she had been having what at least amounted to an emotional affair with Mark Oleksak, a married man she knew from work.
“They started as coworkers, then became very, very close friends,” prosecutor Jennifer Suhl told Dateline.
The day she died, Annamarie texted Oleksak, asking if he could go to Best Buy for her at 6 a.m.
“I will get there about 825a w a coffee and a big kiss,” she wrote.
Annamarie, an avid shopper, had also convinced Oleksak to cosign three credit cards with her, one of which had an outstanding balance at one point of about $7,000.
Oleksak said he had been out the day of Annamarie’s death and had receipts for his purchases. Prosecutors said there was also no evidence that Oleksak had been upset about the debt and that Annamarie had been “paying him back.”
During a separation from Cara the year before her death, Annamarie had also rekindled a romance with an old girlfriend, Springfield police officer Carla Daniele.
“From Carla’s perspective, perhaps the love of her life was coming back to her,” Northwestern District Attorney’s Office prosecutor Steven Gagne told Dateline.
While they were together, Annamarie racked up another $10,000 of debt on Daniele’s accounts before she decided to return to Cara in late 2009.
“She was blindsided. Carla said she was devastated,” Gagne said. “She took it very hard.”
At the time of the murder, Daniele had been at her gym about half an hour away from the crime scene, and surveillance footage backed up her account.
Investigators focus on Cara Rintala
Authorities then took a hard look at Cara. The couple had a volatile relationship and a past history of violence. In 2008, Cara was arrested for assault against Annamarie, although Annamarie later dropped the charges. The women each applied for a restraining order against the other in 2009.
“We’d argue and it would get physical. Absolutely,” Cara admitted. “And I’m no angel, but I can honestly say it was definitely back and forth. You know what I mean?”
Investigators also questioned the timeline Cara provided. According to her account, she'd left the house that day around 3 p.m., but she wasn’t spotted on any surveillance cameras until around 5 p.m.
Massachusetts State Trooper Jamie Magarian, the lead investigator on the case, told Dateline that when he arrived sometime after 7:20 p.m. that night, rigor mortis was already setting in on Annamarie’s body, yet the paint spilled all over the crime scene “was wet,” leading him to believe someone had disturbed the crime scene after Annamarie’s death.
“A stiff body and wet paint and Cara’s not working that day. Whoever’s in that house disturbing that scene, creating that break in is very comfortable that nobody else is coming home. No one else has that comfort,” he said.
A former chief medical examiner would also conclude that Annamarie died sometime between mid-to-late morning and early afternoon, suggesting Cara had been home at the time.
The night before the Annamarie died, the couple had exchanged a series of angry texts after Annamarie discovered that Cara had a guy over to the house while she was working.
“I hate the relationship we have,” Annamarie texted. “No one does that... no respect.”
“Ok u being over the top and crazy,” Cara replied.
Cara Rintala arrested in wife Annamarie Cochrane Rintala's death
Despite the largely circumstantial case, Cara was arrested and charged with murder in October of 2011.
Her first two trials, in 2013 and then in 2014, ended in hung juries. In a third trial, prosecutors brought in an expert who testified about the time it took paint to dry, pointed to those angry text messages exchanged the night before, and argued that Cara had been trying to set up an alibi after the murder by taking her daughter out on those errands.
Prosecutors argued that on the day of the murder, Cara and Annamarie had a violent fight and Annamarie fell down the stairs. They argued that Cara — fearful of a judge’s comments in court months earlier that if the couple’s arguing continued he’d call in child protective services — panicked and strangled her wife.
“The defendant had to make a choice, call for help, likely face criminal charges, lose her home, lose her daughter, lose her livelihood or on the other hand, make Ann go away. And she made her choice,” Gagne argued in court.
This time around, a jury convicted Cara of first-degree murder and she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“I trusted her with my niece’s life and she took it," Martin said of Cara.
But the verdict would later be overturned after a higher court determined that the expert who testified about the paint was not reliable.
Cara — who continues to maintain her innocence — went on trial for a fourth time in September of 2023. This time around, prosecutors focused on the timeline of the case and didn’t call any experts to testify about the paint at the scene.
Cara’s defense team challenged the timeline by calling their own medical expert, who testified that it was possible Annamarie died after 3 p.m. that day.
Who killed Annamarie Cochrane Rintala?
In the fourth trial, Cara was convicted of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. She was sentenced to 12 to 14 years, with credit for time served.
As for Annamarie’s family, they’ve chosen to remember her as she was in life.
“I don’t want people to remember that she was lying on the basement floor, covered in paint,” Jen Cochrane said. “I want them to remember her the way that I do, which is her infectious smile.”
