RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A woman who was a scientist for a drug company admitted in court Monday that she conspired with her lover five years ago to fatally poison her husband, a pediatric AIDS researcher.
Ann Miller Kontz, 35, was sentenced to 25 to 31 1/2 years in prison after her lawyer read a statement saying she felt "a deep sense of remorse and regret" for Eric Miller's death.
"I will struggle for the rest of my life with how this could have happened," the statement said.
Authorities said Kontz, who worked at GlaxoSmithKline, was having an affair with a co-worker when her husband was poisoned by arsenic, a colorless and usually tasteless poison once common in ant and rat killers.
Under a plea deal, Kontz admitted conspiring with the co-worker, Derril Willard, and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Miller, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, died Dec. 2, 2000. He was 30.