Iowa Jury Convicts Woman Who Shot Neighbor in 2001

FORT DODGE, Iowa -- An Iowa jury convicted a woman Monday of murder in the 2001 death of her 20-year-old neighbor, rejecting her claim that she shot him to protect herself and her three children during a home invasion.

Jurors in Fort Dodge apparently believed prosecutors who maintained there was no home invasion and Tracey Richter, now 45, killed Dustin Wehde to keep him quiet about his role in a convoluted plot to frame her ex-husband. Prosecutors said Richter lured Wehde to her home in December 2001, had him write in a pink notebook that her ex-husband hired him to kill her and her son and then shot him nine times with two guns.

Richter was involved in a custody fight at the time, and prosecutors say she was trying to gain an advantage before an upcoming hearing to keep from losing her son and $1,000-a-month child support payments.

Richter buried her face in her arms on the table when the jury's verdict was read.

Prosecutors' star witness was a former family friend who testified Richter told her about the notebook a few months after the shooting and then later told her to forget about it. Investigators who found the notebook in Wehde's car testified they kept its existence secret because they believed whoever knew about its contents had committed a crime.

Richter's first husband, Virginia plastic surgeon John Pitman III, testified he never met Wehde and knew nothing about the notebook.

Richter did not take the witness stand in her own defense. But her son, Bert Pitman, now 21, gave vivid testimony about the break-in, his mother being choked with pantyhose and her shooting Wehde to protect herself and her three children. He suggested his stepfather, Michael Roberts, might have been involved in the attack, while Richter's defense argued a man Wehde's mother had an affair with might have been the second intruder.

Richter, who later moved to Omaha, Neb., where she was arrested last summer, faces life in prison at her Dec. 5 sentencing. The verdict caps what prosecutors described in court records as years of fraudulent and dangerous behavior dating back to 1992, when Richter shot at her first husband during an argument in Colorado.

The verdict also is a major victory for Sac County Attorney Ben Smith, who charged Richter months after taking office following a new look at the case by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. The man who Smith ousted from office last year testified for Richter's defense that mistakes in the initial investigation and other circumstantial details made it difficult to know what really happened.

Roberts, who was married to Richter at the time of the shooting, issued a statement saying he hoped the verdict would help him and new wife move on after years of feuding with Richter. Roberts, who lives in California, obtained custody of their two now-adolescent children after Richter's arrest.

"Pray for healing for my children, for the Wehde's and Tracey's other victims," Roberts said. "Pray also for a hedge of protection around Tracey in prison and that through this experience she might trust in God."