The Dinner Theater Murder

Stephen “Steve” Hricko, 35, was a golf course superintendent from Laurel, Maryland. His wife, Kimberly, worked as a surgical technologist in hospital operating rooms, and she was having an affair. In February 1998, Steve booked a Valentine’s weekend at the Harbourtowne Golf Resort in St. Michaels, including a murder-mystery dinner theater show, hoping to repair the marriage.

Early on February 15, fire broke out in the couple’s room. Kimberly reported it, and Steve was found dead inside. She told investigators he had been drinking and smoking cigars, but the autopsy showed no alcohol in his blood and no soot in his airways, which meant he had stopped breathing before the fire started. Prosecutors argued that she had injected him with succinylcholine, a paralyzing drug used in surgery that she could reach through her job disposing of leftover medications, and then set the fire. They also pointed to $450,000 in life insurance on Steve.

A Talbot County jury convicted Kimberly of first-degree murder and arson in January 1999. In March 1999, Judge William S. Horne sentenced her to life in prison, with a concurrent 30-year term for arson. Maryland’s Court of Special Appeals upheld the convictions in September 2000.