Beau Rothwell sentenced to life in murder of pregnant Creve Coeur wife. Had being having an affair and planned on leaving wife.
A Missouri man has been sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife after she confronted him about an affair and searching for advice on how to deal with a spouse upset by a pregnancy, before she went missing in 2019.
Beau Rothwell, 31, of Creve Coeur, received the life sentence with no chance of parole in the slaying of his wife of four years Jennifer Rothwell, who was pregnant at the time, KSDK reported.
‘We issued this case of murder first and as was stated in sentencing today, we never made any other offers. That was not an option,’ said St Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, according to KSDK.
Bell also mentioned how Jennifer Rothwell will never get to hold the child that she was six-weeks pregnant with at the time of her death.
‘We felt that this individual needed to be held accountable for his actions and that’s what we were intent on doing.’
Insisted murder was not planned but heat of the moment
Beau Rothwell was found guilty of first-degree murder and lesser charges, including tampering with physical evidence and abandonment of a corpse earlier this year.
At trial, he admitted to killing his wife, but insisted it was not premeditated and rather happened during a heated argument over an affair he was having with another woman, in hopes of being found guilty of a lesser manslaughter charge.
He testified he hit his 28-year-old wife with a mallet in November 2019.
‘In the heat of everything, I hit her again,’ he said in court, ‘I believe I cracked her skull. She fell unconscious and fell down the stairs.’
Beau Rothwell testified his plan was to tell his wife about the affair, ‘throw myself at her mercy, and hope for the best,’ KMOV-TV reported prior to his April 28, 2022 guilty conviction.
Rothwell testified he went into ‘panic mode’ in the aftermath of the murder.
He dumped her naked corpse in the woods off Highway 61, then reported her missing, sent concerned texts to her cellphone, and took part in a search party.
‘This should have never happened’
It only took a day for authorities to identify still damp bleach and blood in the couple’s home and arrest Rothwell. Jennifer’s body was found a week later on November 19.
Prosecutors argued the husband was a careful planner, showing texts between him and another woman in the months leading up to the murder and a list of pros and cons he compiled on whether he should leave his wife.
He was also seen on camera buying cleaning products a day before Jennifer Rothwell went missing, police previously said.
Her body was found badly beaten a week after she was reported missing by Beau Rothwell.
‘To Jennifer’s family, words cannot describe how sorry I am. This should have never happened,’ Beau Rothwell said apologizing to his wife’s family, prior to sentencing nearing, according to KSDK.
