BREAKING NEWS: UCG Minister Charged With Killing Wife After Failed Attempt To Hire Hitman

Stephen Carl Allwine of Minnesota has been charged with killing his wife.

  (WASHINGTON COUNTY JAIL)

It's got everything. Staged suicides. Attempts at hiring a hitman. Extramarital affairs. 

The Alwine family is currently in the COG (UCG last I checked).

Church members in UCG and COGWA who knew them were shocked when the story of Amy's murder first came to light. 

Stephen Alwine had staged the "discovery" of his wife's body with his 9-year-old son, and church members first believed their family had been a terrible victim of outsiders. They didn't want to believe that this could happen to church members (it does) and were quick to blame it on the nearest black/gay/atheist/muslim home invader. 

Of course, as every police procedural will tell you, the spouse is always the first suspect.

The local COG congregations, needless to say, are completely floored.

ht: Silenced

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Daily Mail UK news had this about the UCG link:

Husband is charged with shooting dead his wife then trying to disguise her death as a suicide by staging her body with a handgun 'after failed murder-for-hire plots paid for with bitcoins on Dark Web'  

According to his LinkedIn page, Stephen Allwine works as an IT specialist at an insurance company and has long been active in ministry at the United Church of God.

His late wife was the owner of Active Dogs Sports Training located next door to the family’s home, which went out of business a short time after her death. 

 

KARE Minneapolis
A criminal complaint filed in Washington County details how Stephen Carl Allwine, 43, 
allegedly shot his wife, Amy, in the head after engaging in several affairs 
and trying to contact a hit man on the 'dark web' to kill her.

Murder charges: Cottage Grove man staged wife's suicide after searching for hitman on 'Dark Web'

When Cottage Grove police were summoned to an alleged suicide on a Sunday evening in November, it didn’t take long for them to figure out something was amiss.

The victim, Amy Louise Allwine, lay dead on the bedroom floor at her home on 110th Street S. Beside her left elbow was a 9mm handgun, opposite from where the bullet entered the right-handed victim’s head.

“Victim’s hands revealed no soot, no gunpowder stippling, no unburned gunpowder stippling, and no blood on either hand,” according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday that charges her husband, Stephen Carl Allwine, 43, with second-degree murder.

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Investigators also uncovered evidence that he wanted out of his marriage. He was having at least two extramarital affairs with metro-area women, arranged through the Ashley Madison website. 

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Several law enforcement agencies were involved in the investigation, including Cottage Grove and Woodbury police, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and other state and federal agencies, said Capt. Peter Koerner of Cottage Grove police. 

“I’ve never seen a case this complicated,” said Fred Fink, who manages the criminal division for the Washington County attorney’s office. “Most of the time we’re dealing with human witnesses, but this one required a significant amount of electronic and scientific evidence.” 

Stephen Allwine, arrested Tuesday, remains in the Washington County jail.
Bail was set Wednesday at $1 million with no conditions or $500,000 that would require GPS monitoring, no travel outside Minnesota, and no unsupervised visits with the couple’s 9-year-old son. 

Allwine’s next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 13.

Murder charges: Cottage Grove man staged wife's suicide after searching for hitman on 'Dark Web'

Cottage Grove man charged with wife's murder

Daily Mail UK article

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Prosecutor's Shocked At Level of Sophistication Stephen Allwine Went Into To Have His Wife Killed

Prosecutors in the UCG minister murder case had deep concerns that Steve Allwine would post bail and skip town.  He reportedly has the assets to do such a thing and recently had cashed in gold and silver stock piling money.

Plus, the investigators are shocked by the sophistication that Allwine went to to find a hired killer.

Charge: Cottage Grove man killed wife after Dark Web murder plot

Fred Fink, criminal division chief for the Washington County Attorney’s Office, had requested a $2 million bail because he said circumstances suggest Allwine is a flight risk. Fink said Allwine has the funds to flee and recently liquidated silver coins for cash.

Fink also referenced the sophistication involved in Allwine’s alleged actions, saying it “appears to be an absolute determination to kill this woman.”

The criminal complaint’s eight-page narrative details a complex investigation led by Cottage Grove police, who had assistance from the FBI and the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension as they conducted deep digital forensic testing and dug into the dark side of the internet where murder-for-hire jobs are paid for in virtual currency.

“I think the big difference between this and a more common murder is the Dark Web,” Cottage Grove detective Sgt. Randy McAlister said. “It’s the internet connection. That’s what’s really been taking a lot of time.”

As many as five Cottage Grove detectives have worked the case for over two months, setting aside much of the rest of the caseload because of the Allwine investigation’s complexity. They were full-time on the case for the first month, McAlister said.

“This is the first case involving death threats on a purported Dark Web website that we’ve ever dealt with,” McAlister said. “This is definitely the most in-depth.”

As Stephen Allwine Was Being Consoled By Vic Kubik He Was Surfing DarkWeb Asking How to Identify Law Enforcement Officers

After Stephen Allwine's wife had supposedly killed herself,  Victor Kubik, United Church of God and Church of God a Worldwide Association (COGWA) members ran to his side to comfort and offer condolences.   A very reliable source has stated that at his wife's funeral UCG and COGWA members were hugging him and telling him how they wished they had a marriage like he and his wife did.

While of the hugging and tears were being shed Allwine was surfing the DarkWeb asking how to identify LEO's...Law Enforcement Officers.

Reddit:  How to identify LEO's