A New Hampshire man was convicted Thursday of murdering his wife’s co-worker in a gruesome September 2020 murder and dismemberment case that shocked the New England region.
Armando Barron32, shot dead a 25 year old jonathan amerault in a park across the Massachusetts state line. The motive the state provided for the murder was jealousy and anger, a hatred that brewed for quite some time after the defendant realized that his wife, 33, britany barronwas messaging the victim on Snapchat.
“The defendant had every reason to kill Jonathan, because to him, Jonathan was a man who had just started dating his wife,” the prosecutor said. Benjamin Agati he said during closing arguments. “A man his wife thought he looked like an Abercrombie model, a man who was in his workplace and now knew he was talking to his wife behind his back. The man he instantly saw as a rival.”
But the violence did not begin or end with the shooting. Not close.
Before the shooting, Britany Barron testified that her husband strangled and dragged her before repeatedly punching her in the face over the Snapchat revelations. After that, she told the jury, he put a gun in her mouth, promised to kill her, pulled himself together, made sure her children were with her grandmother, and set in motion the plan to kill her. she.
“We’re going to send your little boyfriend a message,” the defendant told his wife as the two sat alone in their car in the park.
Amerault was ambushed by Armando Barron when he arrived at the park, lured there by the defendant’s subterfuge using his wife’s cell phone to ask the victim to go out late that night.
“Are you trying to fuck my wife?” the defendant asked Amerault when the three finally met on Sept. 25, 2020, Britany Barron testified earlier this month. “And she starts hitting him. She just she starts beating him up.”
Jurors were told a number of horrific details.
Britany Barron said the victim fell to the ground and was repeatedly kicked by her husband, who stomped on Amerault’s face at least once. Later, when her husband relented for a time, he pointed her gun at her and forced her to participate in her beating by standing on her neck. Then, according to her testimony, her husband forced her to cut Amerault’s wrists. After that, the witness said, her husband beat the victim with a machete.
When pressed to kill Amerault, the witness said, gun in hand and her husband’s palms on hers in an effort to guide her to pull the trigger, she said she flatly refused.
“Kill him,” Armando Barron told him. “Shoot him. Do it.”
She said she couldn’t.
Finally, the assailant forced Amerault into the trunk of his own hatchback.
“I thought they were going to let me live,” the victim said.
“I guess that makes us both liars,” the defendant said as he fired three shots, according to tearful testimony from his wife.
Prosecutors would later point out during the trial that Amerault had defensive injuries and was trying to save his life when he died.
Defense Attorney for Armando Barron meredith lugo attempted to pin the actual murder on his client’s wife; saying the “wrong person” was on trial and trying to contradict his testimony by using physical evidence. Cheshire County juries did not accept that story.
“His claims are like something out of a TV movie; not real life,” Lugo argued to no avail. “They are sensationalized to make Armando look like a monster and her like a tragic victim.”
After he died, Britany Barron said, her husband followed her 200 miles to a camp. There, she said, Armando Barron had her behead Amerault and then left her alone to dispose of her body.
For her role in meeting her husband’s demands and attempting to cover up the crime, Britany Barron ultimately pleaded guilty to three counts of falsifying evidence. She was released from prison in April after serving about eight months of a three-and-a-half-year sentence.
The victim’s family had begged the sentencing judge not to go easy on the prosecution’s key witness, saying, in victim impact statements, that she “he deserves no mercy” for the time he spent disguising what he did to Amerault’s body after his death, the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism reported in August 2021.
According to Boston.comjurors deliberated for less than two hours before returning all 13 counts against the defendant.
Armando Barron sat emotionless as the verdict was rendered, Manchester, NH ABC affiliate WMUR reported.
He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.
[image via screengrab/WMUR]
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Reference-lawandcrime.com