Ohio doctor convicted of wife’s 2005 cyanide poisoning death faces life in prison
By APTuesday, March 9, 2010
Sentencing for doctor in wife’s cyanide death
CLEVELAND — An Ohio doctor convicted of aggravated murder in his wife’s cyanide-poisoning death faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced.
Forty-one-year-old Yazeed Essa (EE’-suh) was convicted last week of lacing his wife’s calcium supplement with cyanide in 2005. He is being sentenced Tuesday afternoon in Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH’-guh) County Common Pleas Court. Rosemarie Essa collapsed while driving and crashed her car into another vehicle near the couple’s home.
Essa, a former emergency room doctor at an Akron hospital, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
Prosecutors say Essa killed his wife so he could be with his mistress. The defense claimed a mistress wanted to marry the doctor and had a motive to kill.
