Husband killer spent life insurance payout on boob job and wild parties

A WOMAN has been convicted of murdering her US Marine husband with arsenic so she could cash in on his $250,000 life insurance policy, some of which she used to have her breasts enlarged.

Prosecutors argued that Cynthia Sommer, 33, wanted a more luxurious lifestyle than she could afford on her husband’s $1,700 monthly salary and saw his military life insurance policy as a way to “set herself free”.

In addition to the breast enlargement surgery, Ms Sommer’s friends and co-workers testified, she threw wild parties and had casual sex with multiple partners in the weeks after her husband’s death and the payment of the insurance policy.

Sgt Todd Sommer, 23, was in top condition when he collapsed and died on February 18, 2002, at the couple’s home on the Marine Corps’ Miramar base in San Diego.

His death was initially ruled a heart attack. Tests of his liver later found levels of arsenic 1,020 times above normal.

Ms Sommer, who was arrested in December 2005, swallowed and stared as the verdict was read, while her mother burst into tears. She faces an automatic life sentence. Formal sentencing was set for March 23.

“I’m deeply disappointed,” defence attorney, Robert Udell, said after the verdict. “I don’t believe Cindy killed Todd.”

With no direct evidence that Ms Sommer was the source of the arsenic, Deputy District Attorney Laura Gunn relied heavily on circumstantial evidence of Ms Sommer’s debts to show that she had a motive to kill her husband.

Ms Gunn asserted that the defendant was the only person with motive and access to poison the marine.

Ms Sommers is engaged to an ex-marine she met just two months after her husband’s death. She was extradited to California from her new home in West Palm Beach, Florida.