Missouri prison nurse gets 12 year sentence for poisoning husband so she could marry convicted killer

47-year-old Amy Murray pleaded guilty on June 25 to charges of second-degree murder, arson, and tampering with evidence in connection to the 2018 death of her husband, Joshua Murray. Under the terms of the plea agreement, Murray accepted the convictions but maintained her innocence. She received a 12-year sentence for murder, along with 7 years for arson and 4 years for tampering, all to be served concurrently.

In 2018, 37-year-old Joshua Murray was found dead in the remains of a house fire that investigators determined had been intentionally set using an accelerant. An autopsy revealed elevated levels of antifreeze in his system, indicating he had been poisoned. Murray was home just 30 minutes prior to the fire, then left to get food along with the couple’s 11-year-old child and their two dogs, the affidavit stated.

Amy Murray was arrested three months later in February 2019. She posted $750,000 bail after her arrest, then proceeded to spend six years fighting the charges. Her defense team argued that Joshua might have taken his own life and ingested antifreeze. However, the judge did not allow this motion to proceed, according to People.

The investigation revealed that Murray had been in frequent contact with Eugene Claypool, a convicted murderer serving a 25-years-to-life sentence at the Jefferson City Correctional Center, where Murray worked as a nurse. Recorded phone calls between the two revealed that Murray had expressed dissatisfaction with her marriage. After her husband’s death, Murray told Claypool that the two of them could get married now that her husband was "out of the picture.”