An Ohio woman was sentenced this week to 40 years in prison for injecting her estranged husband with an animal tranquilizer — and then burying his body — in an attack that was partially captured on a vehicle’s dashboard camera.
Amanda Hovanec, 37, of Wapakoneta, pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including distribution of a controlled substance causing death, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio said in a statement Tuesday.
Prosecutors say she killed Timothy Hovanec in 2022 to prevent him from seeing their children.
Her lover, Anthony Theodorou, and her mother, Anita Green, who were also federally charged in Timothy Hovanec’s death, admitted involvement in the death or helping to dispose of the body.
The Hovanecs, who were divorcing, had three children, prosecutors said. She began divorcing in 2020 and later began denying her husband visitation with their children despite a court order allowing it, prosecutors said.
In April 2022, a judge ordered that the children be allowed to visit their father and further ordered that he become the residential parent and legal custodian for two months next summer.
On April 24, 2022, Amanda Hovanec injected her husband in the shoulder with M-99, also known as Etorphine, a controlled substance about 1,000 times stronger than morphine, prosecutors said. The sound of the attack, which occurred shortly after Timothy Hovanec dropped off his children at his wife’s home, was captured on a dashboard camera in his Volkswagen Tiguan, according to an affidavit in support of criminal complaints against Hovanec.
Green was at the house and went inside with the children after Amanda Hovanec told them a surprise was waiting, the affidavit said.
The victim, identified in the affidavit only as TH, can be heard saying on the dash camera video: “What the hell are you doing? Did you just attack me?’ according to the statement. “Get off me.”
Amanda Hovanec is then seen on the passenger side of the vehicle pulling at his hands and shirt while trying to get a cell phone, the affidavit said. She moved him to the ground and held his neck, without strangling him, until his body lay limp in the driveway, the affidavit and prosecutors said.
“Hovanec’s violent and deliberate actions were cold-blooded, calculated and cruel. Her extreme malice toward her husband and her complete disregard for the consequences of his murder on their innocent children are incomprehensible and inexcusable,” U.S. Attorney Rebecca Lutzko said in a statement.
Hovanec later admitted to authorities that she knew the drug would kill her husband “within minutes,” the affidavit said.
A lawyer for Hovanec could not be reached for comment Thursday. Court records show Green fired several attorneys. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison and two years of supervised release after pleading guilty to aiding and abetting the crimes.
Theodorou, who was charged with distribution of a controlled substance causing death and conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance causing death, was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $2 million in restitution, his lawyer said. Steve Palmer.
“The whole thing was tragic. He is pleased that this has been completed in the best interests of the case,” Palmer said.
When Amanda Hovanec spoke with investigators on April 27, 2022, she admitted to killing her husband, leaving his car in Dayton and burying his body in the woods not far from her home, prosecutors said. Theodorou obtained the substance used to kill the victim and also helped Hovanec bury her husband’s body, the affidavit said.
Theodorou told investigators that Hovanec had been talking about killing her husband for about a year because she felt it was “the only way to keep the children from spending the summer with their father,” according to the affidavit.
Authorities found Timothy Hovanec’s body on April 28, 2022.
Green told investigators she was aware of her daughter’s plan to do “something” with her husband, but did not think she would go through with it. She also said she knew she was in deep trouble when she drove her daughter and Theodorou to the cemetery, the affidavit said.
“I knew at that moment we were driving and we stopped…I’m in it now,” she said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
