The Unraveling

Marissa DeVault and Dale Harrell lived on East Maplewood Street in Gilbert, Arizona, with their three daughters. Sharing the home was Stanley Cook, an Army veteran left with memory problems after a 1998 motorcycle crash, whom the girls called “Uncle Stan.” DeVault also owed about $300,000 to Allen Flores, an older man she had met online.

Early on January 14, 2009, DeVault struck Dale in the head with a hammer as he slept, landing at least seven blows and fracturing his skull. She first told police that Dale had attacked her and that Cook had grabbed the hammer to save her. Cook backed that up, but the blood evidence did not fit, and DeVault eventually admitted she had swung it herself. Dale died on February 9. Hours later DeVault reported being beaten by a stranger while jogging; Cook later said he had done it at her request, breaking her jaw and ankle with a sledgehammer.

Flores testified that DeVault had asked him about having Dale killed or about making his death look like self-defense. Her trial opened in January 2014, with a defense built on battered woman syndrome. On April 8, 2014, jurors convicted her of first-degree murder, and they later declined to impose the death penalty. She was sentenced on June 6, 2014, to life without parole. The Arizona Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in August 2016.