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A woman extradited from Italy for the 2002 fatal bludgeoning of her husband in Michigan was convicted of second-degree murder in a case that prosecutors likened to a “made-for-TV movie.”
A jury in Eaton County needed only two hours Monday to decide the outcome of the trial against Beverly McCallum, the Lansing State Journal reported.
Roberto Caraballo, 37, was suffocated and beaten in the basement of his home in Charlotte, about 105 miles northwest of Detroit.
Burned remains were found in a metal locker near a blueberry field in western Michigan’s Ottawa County, but the remains were not identified as Caraballo until 2015, more than 10 years later.
McCallum, 63, was arrested in Italy in 2020 and held there for more than two years before being returned to Michigan. McCallum showed no visible reaction as the verdict was read, according to Court TV video.
Prosecutor Doug Lloyd said McCallum wanted to get rid of Caraballo in 2002 after he was released from federal prison.
“Robert being around was cramping her lifestyle,” Lloyd argued.
Defense attorney Timothy Havis told jurors that McCallum didn’t have a role in the killing but was lured into taking a ride to get rid of the remains.
McCallum, however, was implicated at trial by Christopher McMillan, a witness who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and cooperated with police. He said Caraballo was attacked by McCallum and her daughter, Dineane Ducharme.
Ducharme, 43, is serving a life prison sentence after being convicted of first-degree murder in 2021. McMillan, 45, is serving a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.
McCallum took the stand on Friday, saying she played no role in her husband’s murder, the Lansing State Journal reported. But her daughter, Sicily Caraballo, who was 9 at the time of the killing, was called to testify and refuted some of her mother’s testimony, including her claim that the injuries she inflicted on her husband were minor, the newspaper reported.
“It’s like a made-for-TV movie, is what it seemed like, especially as she took the stand and tried to give an explanation that didn’t make any sense at all,” Lloyd said after the verdict was read, the newspaper reported.
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