Daniel Barrett Luzerne Pennsylvania man sentenced to life after admitting to killing wife, Mary with a fireplace poker after erroneously believing her to be cheating on him.
An ironic death… A Pennsylvania man who admitted to stabbing his wife to death with a fireplace poker over after mistakenly believing her to be cheating has been sentenced to mandatory life behind bars.
Daniel Barrett, 40, of Plymouth (Luzerne County), beat and stabbed his wife, Mary Barrett, to death with a fire poker in January 2021, after coming to the belief she had been having an affair behind his back, WNEP reported at the time.
After Barrett confessed to the crime on Jan. 11, 2021, officers executing a warrant at the home, where they found his wife’s body in the basement ‘clearly deceased’ and covered with a sheet.
The couple had an argument over his accusations of her infidelity at their home in the 100 block of Gaylord Avenue in Plymouth the previous weekend, CitizensVoice reports.
Daniel punched Mary and pushed her to the ground near the fireplace after she ‘admitted to spending time with someone else,’ as stated in court documents obtained by WNEP. The next thing Barrett remembers is standing over his wife’s body with fireplace tongs.
Left for dead…
During the argument, Daniel said he stabbed Mary first with a knife and then with the fire poker in her lower back.
But there was more to come.
Having assaulted her, the husband went to wash his face, only to hear his wife moaning, leading to the man to drag the woman to the basement. Barrett conceded only returning some time later to cover the by then deceased woman with a sheet according to testimony.
When friends began reaching out to check on Mary, Daniel communicated with them through his wife’s Facebook account as if she was still alive, according to a release by the Pennsylvania AG’s office.
Mary Barrett had a 14-year-old child with Robert Atkinson according to Fox 56 WOLF.
The day after the stabbing Daniel Barrett called Atkinson and confided to him that he’d killed her, according to the criminal complaint obtained by The Citizens’ Voice.
When police went to the home to investigate, they found a trail of blood to the basement, where Mary’s body was found — stabbed with a hole in her skull, with a fireplace poker laying alongside of her body.
Investigators found ‘no evidence of an affair,’ and this was all jealousy, Deputy Attorney General Angela Sprerrazza stated.
The couple had been married for five years and Mary was a retired member of the US Air Force in 2014 and was working as a secretary for Plymouth Borough prior to her death.
Barrett who had pled guilty to first-degree murder had faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.
