A Michigan woman accused of setting her husband on fire and then driving a van over his burning body was sentenced to life in prison for murder on Monday after failing to persuade a jury for the second time that she was not to blame.
Linda Stermer has been imprisoned and then released several times since Todd Stermer’s death nearly 20 years ago. She also won an appeal and received a new trial. She is now back in custody, serving a no-parole sentence.
“Murder is by definition a monstrous deed,” Van Buren County Judge Kathleen Brickley stated. “But the crime you’ve committed is more heinous than most. I can’t imagine how much pain he went through in his final moments.
Prosecutors claim Stermer doused her husband in gasoline and set him on fire in 2007, a day after he discovered she was having an extramarital affair. Stermer insisted it was an accident, telling insurance investigators Todd had an oil lamp and candles burning in his home.
She was initially convicted in 2010. However, in 2020, a federal appeals court granted her a new trial, stating that her rights were violated when her attorney failed to adequately counter the arson theme described by prosecutors.
One of the judges on the three-judge panel strongly disagreed, claiming that an accident was not plausible. All that was missing, Judge Jeffrey Sutton stated at the time, “was a film of the mariticide.”
Stermer, 60, maintained her innocence Monday.
“While I stand before you, innocent and wrongfully convicted, I’m prepared for the battle ahead,” she told the jury.
