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:
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.
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.
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