Ranger: Woman's diamond missing from ring after cliff fall

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Ranger: Woman's diamond missing from ring after cliff fall
Sadie Gurman, Associated Press
Updated 4:18 pm, Wednesday, September 9, 2015

DENVER (AP) — A woman whose husband is charged with pushing her off a cliff to her death in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park was wearing her wedding ring when she died, but the expensive diamond was missing, a park ranger testified Wednesday.

Prosecutors say Harold Henthorn staged his wife's death to look like an accident and stood to benefit from life insurance policies totaling $4.7 million that she didn't know existed. He has been charged with first-degree murder in the Sept. 29, 2012, death of Toni Henthorn, 50, who plummeted about 130 feet off a remote, rocky ledge.

Ranger Paul Larson said he could not find the diamond in the craggy, secluded area where authorities found the body. Harold Henthorn told investigators that his wife fell during a scenic hike they took to celebrate their 12th wedding anniversary and that he moved her body to flatter terrain so he could tend to her.

Investigators previously said they suspected Henthorn of removing the diamond — insured for $12,000 — from his wife's ring, because her hand was not badly injured in the fall. Larson said he drew no conclusions about the diamond, but he and other rangers noted unusual details from the scene.


Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Ranger-Man-could-not-explain-X-on-map-where-6492372.php

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[center]

Harold Henthorn and wife.[/center]

[gvstn]

1. He's both greedy and stupid.

\Three insurance policies totalling $4.7million (they weren't that wealthy that this would be normal) and then takes the paltry diamond too? He couldn't let her have it?

He did the same to his first wife, car fell on her when she was helping change a tire.

[jmowreader]

6. You would too, if you were a black widower

Anyone greedy enough to kill for money isn't going to leave $12,000 lying on the ground...in this case, literally.

Suggestion for new law: No one can issue a life insurance policy unless the person being insured acknowledges in writing that he or she knows about it. This would solve both the Black Widow problem and the Dead Peasant problem.

[blackspade]

2. What a scumbag.

[Journeyman]

3. Very bizarre. Once she was released by the coroner, he could remove the ring with no stigma . . .

now, if he did remove it when he got to her body at the bottom of the cliff, he only sealed suspicions around him and his involvement in her death.

[gvstn]

7. Exactly.

The funeral home always asks if you want to have the jewelry returned or buried with them after the viewing. A wedding ring is something that is probably very often kept as a remembrance.

[Thor_MN]

10. But if it was "lost" during the "fall", he could get the $12K insurance AND the diamond...

[Journeyman]

11. Ah, I didn't catch that -- it devolves to a sordid story of rapacious greed . . .

His hubris will probably prove his downfall.

[MBS]

4. Wow-

It's like the plot of a bad B movie.

[CatWoman]

5. lol

more like a Lifetime Movie

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

15. Headed next to the Hallmark Channel.

[gvstn]

8. I had seen this story the other day.

This second wife told her mom that she and her husband had been doing some renovations on a cabin and a 20 foot beam fell a few inches from her head. She said if she hadn't bent over at that exact second she would have been dead.

I wouldn't give this guy any help do handy work.

[onethatcares]

9. I was under the impression

that diamonds were basically worthless stones except when they are sold to couples thinking a piece of coal makes a life of love.

There's a guy in the jewelry district in NY that sweeps diamonds and other precious stones off the street from the gutters.

There isn't anyone out there looking for them except for him I guess

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

16. No, they are certainly not worthless.

But the mark up is outa-this-world!

[Baitball Blogger]

12. His eyes betray him.

[MisterP]

13. isn't this is like the third murder-by-cliff in a national park in a few years?

[Judi Lynn]

14. Yup. At least! I remember in one case, the husband pretended he had gone over the side in a car

with his wife.

One pretended his wife had slipped posing for a photo.

I know we have heard of others too, like a man who was arguing with his wife and claimed he took her up to one of their favorite spots to talk and she slipped over the side, and there was even a young newlywed woman who gave her bridegroom a sudden shove and sent him over the side, a couple of years ago.

Looks like cliffs are good to avoid if you're going there with anyone you've ever slighted!

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

17. Standing at the rail on a cruise ship has also been hazardous to newly wedded brides.

[Sunlei]

18. how do they know she didn't just fall?lot of people in their 50s have large life insurance policies

It's a better 'investment' to leave to your family then a box full of cash.