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Wife of Pa. bigamist sent to prison for his murder
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A woman who killed her bigamist husband just hours before he was to leave for Morocco to visit his second wife has been sentenced to eight to 20 years in prison.
Myra Morton, 48, was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty in April to third-degree murder for fatally shooting her husband of 25 years.
Morton was upset about her husband's new marriage to a younger Muslim woman and his plans to have children with her, authorities have said. She shot her 47-year-old husband, Jereleigh Morton, twice in the head in August while he slept in their home in Blue Bell, a Philadelphia suburb.
She initially blamed the killing on an intruder, but her attorneys later acknowledged that the crime was intentional. They said the killing stemmed from the damaged psyche of a humiliated, middle-aged woman.
Morton tearfully apologized to the victim's mother from the witness stand Wednesday.
The Mortons converted to Islam about 20 years ago. In keeping with Muslim custom, she traveled to Morocco to bless her husband's March 2007 second marriage to 37-year-old Zahra Toural, who Jereleigh Morton met on the Internet.
But police say Morton grew to resent the arrangement, at least in part because her husband was sending Toural $3,000 a month.
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A woman who killed her bigamist husband just hours before he was to leave for Morocco to visit his second wife has been sentenced to eight to 20 years in prison.
Myra Morton, 48, was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty in April to third-degree murder for fatally shooting her husband of 25 years.
Morton was upset about her husband's new marriage to a younger Muslim woman and his plans to have children with her, authorities have said. She shot her 47-year-old husband, Jereleigh Morton, twice in the head in August while he slept in their home in Blue Bell, a Philadelphia suburb.
She initially blamed the killing on an intruder, but her attorneys later acknowledged that the crime was intentional. They said the killing stemmed from the damaged psyche of a humiliated, middle-aged woman.
Morton tearfully apologized to the victim's mother from the witness stand Wednesday.
The Mortons converted to Islam about 20 years ago. In keeping with Muslim custom, she traveled to Morocco to bless her husband's March 2007 second marriage to 37-year-old Zahra Toural, who Jereleigh Morton met on the Internet.
But police say Morton grew to resent the arrangement, at least in part because her husband was sending Toural $3,000 a month.
