Beau Rothwell from St. Louis was found guilty of first-degree murder by a Missouri jury after he admitted that he murdered his pregnant wife in a fit of rage in 2019.
The 31-year-old was also found guilty of tampering with physical evidence and abandonment of a corpse, reported PEOPLE. On Tuesday, he testified that he and his wife, Jennifer, argued in their house on Nov. 11, 2019, about his extramarital affair. The verbal fight turned violent after he refused to reveal the identify of the woman with whom he was in a relationship.
He said that his angry wife told him to keep his "mystery b****" and then alleged that the baby was not his. Later, a paternity test confirmed that Rothwell was the baby's dad.
Rothwell said that he went into a "red haze" and hit his wife in the head with a mallet after which she stumbled towards the garage door. He added that followed Jennifer and hit her again. Rothwell said that he believed he "cracked her skull," and that she fell "unconscious and fell down the stairs."
His wife was six weeks pregnant, and he said that he did not plan to kill her. Rothwell shared that after the killing, he dumped her naked body in the woods about an hour away from his house. He used bleach to clean the house and got rid of evidence in a dumpster near the highway. Then he reported his wife missing.
Rothwell was arrested after police found blood and bleach soaked carpeting in the couple's house. Then he led cops to her corpse.
After Rothwell was declared guilty, he closed his eyes and tilted his head slightly down and exhaled, KMOV4 reported. His sentencing is set for July 8, and he faces life in prison without the chance of parole.
According to search warrants, before her death, Jennifer used her phone to search Google for "what to do if your husband is upset you are pregnant." It was also found that Rothwell sent chilling messages to his lover before the brutal attack, reported Mirror.
Cops went through phone records while investigating and found an unknown number. It belonged to a woman Rothwell was having an affair with. After seeing news reports about Jennifer going missing, the woman came forward. She later provided detectives with messages exchanged between herself and Rothwell.
Rothwell got in touch with his lover after learning his wife was pregnant. He said that he couldn't focus or do anything productive, and that he was "in panic mode Lol." He shared that his wife took a "pregnancy test and it came back positive."
In the messages, he also sent her three "options" for the future. One was they stop interacting with each other. The second was that he tells Jennifer about the affair and they get divorced. The third was to wait and see if his wife miscarries. One message said that part of him wanted "this pregnancy to not work out."
