On Monday, authorities convicted a former California attorney of strangling and killing his ex-wife while they were on a cruise ship in the Meditteranean. The motive for the murder was allegedly due to financial disputes between the two parties.
Thrown overboard
Authorities placed the suspect, Lonnie Loren Kocontes, 62 years old, in special circumstances for suspicion of murder for financial gain. He is convicted for the death of his ex-wife, Micki Kanesaki, 52 years old.
The crew of a research vessel discovered Kanesaki's body on May 28, 2006, in Mediterranean waters near Italy.
According to NBC Los Angeles, the Senior Deputy District Attorney Susan Price said in her opening statement that Kanesaki was in the company of a man who no longer had emotional attachments to her but had stayed for financial reasons.
If no one found Kanesaki's body, Price noted that there would be no knowledge that the victim was dead before she reached the water.
Kocontes is charged with first-degree murder and would be locked behind bars for life with no chance of parole when judges sentence him in September.
Prosecutors said that Kocontes murdered his wife on the cruise ship to receive more than one million dollars of funds from their accounts and the cost of selling the residence they owned in Ladera Ranch, as reported by US News.
Kocontes was found to be divorced with Kanesaki, remarried with another woman, and quickly divorced before their meeting on the ship. He revealed that they had planned to reconcile and get married after the events of the cruise.
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A hidden agenda
The ex-attorney, however, schemed to kill Kanesaki and planned to make it look like an accident. After the murder, Kocontes returned to California and reported that his wife was missing.
According to San Diego Union-Tribune, in 2008, Kocontes attempted to transfers one million dollars from their accounts to several others, sa explained by the US attorney's office. And in 2013, he was convicted and has been held in prison ever since.
Kocontes said he had fallen asleep on the ship after taking a sleeping pill to find that his wife Kanesaki was gone. He denied the allegations that he killed his wife.
Todd Spitzer, the Orange County District Attorney, said that Kocontes believed he committed a flawless crime by tossing Kanesaki's body into the water from the balcony of the cruise ship. However, he did not expect that strangling her before throwing her overboard gave prosecutors enough evidence to pin him for murder.
Spitzer added that Kanesaki could not breathe underwater because she was already dead prior. When authorities discovered her body, medical experts ruled her cause of death asphyxiation and not drowning.
Autopsy of Kanesaki's body found that her lungs showed no traces of water and found her neck to have severe hemorrhaging signs consistent with strangulation. Dr. Pietrantonio Ricci, the pathologist in charge of the autopsy, revealed that the victim also suffered a skull fracture or brain hemorrhage.
Authorities also charged Kocontes with attempting to solicit Nguyen's murder while he was locked in prison, and the case is currently waiting for trial.
