Elizabeth had a decent life insurance policy (confirmed). Sergio remarried shortly after (confirmed). He also has a new house (confirmed).
…
I agree, I think it can’t be denied that if her husband no longer wanted to be her husband, from a financial standpoint, he would be far better off with her murdered. There is really no question there — rather than losing half his marital assets and his household’s primary income earner, he would instead be left with:
1) The proceeds of a $500k life insurance policy; and
2) All of their marital assets.
That’s of course not evidence in and of itself that he had anything to do with it, but you can’t say that no one stood to benefit from her murder, because that’s simply not true. The only other piece relevant to determining whether he had motive would be whether he was still planning on spending his life with her. And really, only he knows that. When my long term relationship ended, no one saw it coming. People who spent time with us together a couple weeks before the breakup still saw him as loving and devoted to me. I thought he loved and was devoted to me. Heck, even a couple weeks before the breakup, I don’t think he even saw it coming. Yes, there was someone else.
I’ll note that people make a big deal about whether her husband has received her life insurance, but that’s irrelevant. All that’s relevant is if he knew about it, which he did. He wouldn’t know that the company would delay paying if he was under suspicion. And an innocent husband should be able to collect on a life insurance policy without guilt. He shouldn’t have to put it towards a reward as some suggest, that’s not what life insurance is for. It’s to allow him to pick up the pieces of his life, maintain his standard of living after the death of his higher-earning spouse, and give him money to live on while dealing with grief. But if he knew about it beforehand, then yes, that’s relevant to motive.
Of course, it goes without saying that having a motive means nothing if the person with the motive is moral/ethical/a law-abider/empathic/etc.
MOO
