ROLLA, Mo. -- Shirley Allen, whose teenage daughters testified she poisoned her husband's drinks with antifreeze, was convicted Friday of capital murder.
Mrs. Allen showed no emotion as the Phelps County Circuit Court jury delivered its verdict less than three hours after deliberations began.
Mrs. Allen, 42, of St. Peters, Mo., had denied she killed her husband Lloyd Allen or spiked his beer and soft drinks with antifreeze. Allen died in November 1982, about 14 months after the couple had married.
'I do wish we could have asked for the death penalty because it was well deserved under the circumstances of this crime,' assistant prosecutor D. Eugene Dalton Jr. said.
Norma Hawkins, 18, and her sister, Paula, 17, Mrs. Allen's daughters by one of her three previous marriages, testified they saw their mother put antifreeze into drinks and that they saw Allen drink from them.
The daughters consented to testify because Dalton agreed not to seek the death penalty. Dalton said it would have been difficult to win a conviction without their testimony.
The only other sentence for capital murder under Missouri law is life imprisonment without parole for 50 years.
The daughters, who were not present for the verdict, testified Mrs. Allen said she wanted to 'finish' Allen off and once sent them on a vain search for cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules that killed seven people in the Chicago area.
An autopsy showed Allen's body was saturated with ethylene glycol, an antifreeze. Mrs. Allen was accused of poisoning Allen over an eight-month period.
An insurance agent testified that Mrs. Allen checked to see whether her husband's $25,000 life insurance policy was paid up just days before he died of antifreeze poisoning. The insurance agent also said Mrs. Allen appeared at her office the day after Allen's death and asked whether she needed to sign papers to collect on the policy.
Jury foreman Don Stevens said he could not attribute the verdict to any single piece of evidence or testimony presented by the prosecution.
'It was putting all the things together,' Stevens said. He said the jury reached its verdict on its third vote.
Defense attorney H. Carl Kuelker said he will seek a new trial. Kuelker had attacked the daughters' credibility for changing their stories from previous depositions and hearings, when they had said they knew nothing of their stepfather's death.
'They admit to a lot of inconsistencies, a ton of them,' Kuelker said in closing arguments. 'They admit to lying under oath.'
Two defense witnesses had testified that Paula, 17, told them Norma, 18, was responsible for Allen's poisoning.
Mrs. Allen's trial was postponed several times and was moved to Rolla on a second change of venue.
