Affairs, 'dark web' scam in focus as Minnesota murder-for-hire trial begins
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Stephen Allwine, 44, a church elder and deacon, allegedly murdered his wife after his plan to have her killed backfired. (Washington County Sheriff’s Office)
Washington County opened its trial against Stephen Allwine Monday, a case with a plot stripped from the pages of a murder mystery—sex, lies, murder and a hit man for hire.
A criminal complaint from January 2017 details an unsuccessful attempt by the 44-year-old to hire a hitman to kill his wife, Amy Allwine, alleging that as the plan unraveled he personally carried out the act by shooting her and staging it as a suicide.
Prosecutors are now alleging that Allwine, a deeply religious man who served as a deacon and church elder, had at least three affairs with women he met on the website Ashley Madison that served as the impetus to kill his wife.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Instead of divorcing her, police say the information technology worker took to the "dark web" as user DOGDAYGOD and was scammed by a now-defunct website called "Besa Mafia" that FBI officials say would regularly take Bitcoin for killings and beatings it would never carry out. Detectives later found a Bitcoin key on Allwine's phone that linked him to an attempt on his wife's life.
After losing $13,000 to the site, prosecutors say he drugged his wife and shot her in the head himself, later sending their then-eight-year-old son into their house to "discover" her body.
Allwine's defense team, however, argues that the evidence being cited is circumstantial, with a lack of fingerprints, DNA or a confession.
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