LIBBY — An Idaho woman has been convicted of shooting and killing her former boyfriend along a rural road in northwestern Montana.
A District Court jury in Libby heard six days of testimony and on Wednesday found Sarah Carpenter guilty of deliberate homicide in the January 2017 death of Travis Gillett, 31, near the town of Yaak, The Western News reports .
She faces up to life in prison and her sentencing is set for Oct. 2.
Carpenter’s husband, Ezra Skinner, also was initially charged with deliberate homicide, but pleaded guilty to evidence tampering.
Skinner testified Carpenter was manipulative and picked Gillett up from a homeless shelter and brought him home with the intent of killing him.
Skinner said he and Carpenter drove from Pondera, Idaho, to the Libby area with Gillett, bound and sedated, in their vehicle.
He said he believed they were looking for places to throw him in the river and stopped at a bridge above the Libby Dam. He said they got Gillett out of the car, but then loaded him back up.
Skinner testified they drove back through Libby to Troy and north through Yaak, stopping several times. Married couples cannot be forced to testify against each other, but Skinner waived this privilege to testify as part of a plea deal.
At one stop on Yaak River Road, Skinner said he got out of the car to relieve himself and Carpenter forced Gillett at gunpoint down an embankment and shot him.
Prosecutors alleged Carpenter returned to Idaho and reported Gillett missing before leading Montana officers to his body. She said she searched that particular area because Gillett’s cellphone and wallet had been left in a plastic bag on her front door with a note referring to the area.
Carpenter’s defense was that it was Skinner who abducted and killed Gillett because he believed Gillette had upset Carpenter so badly she had a miscarriage. Skinner and Carpenter later married and she had twins, a boy and a girl, after their arrests in August 2017.
Carpenter said she initially didn’t implicate Skinner because she saw him as a provider for her and her children, including a child fathered by Gillett.
Skinner pleaded guilty in March to evidence tampering for his involvement in the sale of the murder weapon to a member of Carpenter’s family and for deleting text messages. Carpenter also was found guilty of that charge.