CONCORD, New York – A jury on Thursday convicted a New Hampshire man of first-degree murder for the murder of his wife’s colleague after learning they were texting and then forcing her to be beheaded.
Armando Barron, 32, faces a life sentence without parole. He was also convicted of assaulting his wife, Brittany Barron, the night he learned she was texting her colleague, Jonathan Amero, 25. Prosecutors said he used her cell phone to lure him to a park north of the Massachusetts border in September 2020. Barron was also convicted of beating and kicking Amerol, forcing him to get into his own car and shot.
Amerault’s mother was in the courtroom and began to cry while the sentence was read. The jurors heard the case in less than two hours.
“The defendant had every reason to kill Jonathan, because for him Jonathan was a man who had just started seeing his wife,” prosecutor Benjamin Agatha said in closing remarks. “A man his wife thought looked like an Abercrombie model, a man who was at her job who he now knew was talking to his wife behind his back. The man he immediately saw as a rival. “
In closing remarks, Barron’s lawyer said Brittany’s testimony was refuted by physical evidence and she had a motive to lie, while a prosecutor said she had told the truth and feared for her life.
Barron pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyers claim that his wife shot Amerol, which she denies.
His lawyer, Meredith Lugo, said the “main example” that Brittany’s testimony was not supported by the evidence was her description of how Armando fired the last bullet into the hatchback. She said he was facing the passenger seat, with the Amerault in the back and his head next to the hatchback’s door.
Lugo said the shot could not have been fired that way, noting that the state’s chief medical officer testified that the bullet had been fired at close range.
“If Brittany isn’t honest with you about this, what else is she not telling you?” Lugo said.
Agatti said Amerolt was killed trying to save himself by moving towards Armando at the shot. He was trying to defend himself when a previous bullet passed through his arm and there were other protective wounds on his arms and hands. His feet were close to the machete on the floor and to the car door handles.
“To believe that Jonathan was just sitting there during this shooting is unreasonable,” Agatha said.
Brittany, 33, testified that after Amerol was shot, she was forced to drive 200 miles (322 kilometers) north to a remote campsite, with Armando driving right behind her and talking to her on the phone for most of the day. From the road. There, she said, she was forced to decapitate Amerol. Her husband eventually left her in place, telling her to dispose of the body, she testified.
Lugo said Brittany was “very capable of lying when she wants to”, noting that when she was approached at the campsite by State Department of Fish and Game officials, she told them she was there, “clearing her head”. after a fight with a friend at a party.
Eventually, police noticed something covered with a tarpaulin that turned out to be Amerol’s car. She was detained and taken to the police.
“But, of course, she’s cooperating at the moment,” Lugo said. “She had a story to sell, and she needed them to believe it,” presenting herself as a victim.
Agatti said the balance Brittany had to strike, “believing her own life was lost, compared to her need to return home to the girls from whom she was almost literally abducted, the relationship in which she was 14 years of marriage ”should be considered by the jurors.
Brittany Barron pleaded guilty last year to three counts of falsifying evidence and was released on parole last month.
The Associated Press did not name the couple so as not to identify Brittany Barron, who said she had suffered extreme violence. Through her lawyer, she recently agreed to use her name.
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