02/05/2013

Poker Player Jailed For Killing Wife

A British professional poker player has been jailed for 20 years after killing his wife.

Marcus Bebb-Jones was said to have killed his wife, Sabrina, in America in the "heat of passion".

Mr Bebb-Jones denied murdering his wife in 1997, but earlier this year, he pleaded guilty under an agreement that meant he avoided a trial on a first-degree murder charge.

Mrs Bebb-Jones went missing in September 1997 when the couple were running the Melrose Hotel in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Her skull was only found in a national park in north-west Colorado in 2004.

Following accusations that her husband went on to spend thousands of dollars on his wife's credit cards, Bebb-Jones was arrested at his Worcestershire home in 2009.

The 49-year-old lost his appeal against extradition to the US in 2011 and was due to stand trial, but he pleaded guilty at a hearing in the 9th Judicial District Court in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, in February.

District Attorney Sherry Caloia said he made a plea bargain, admitting to murder in the second degree, in exchange for a sentence of no more than 20 years.

He was jailed at Garfield County Court and his sentence will be reduced to reflect the time he has has already served awaiting the trial.

(JP/CD)

Related UK National News Stories
Click here for the latest headlines.

10 November 2006
Man pleads guilty to stabbing student
A man who stabbed a student to death on a train has been sentenced to life imprisonment. Thomas Lee Wood, 22, from Skelmersdale in Lancashire admitted killing first-year student Thomas Grant, 19, from Glouestershire who had been attending St Andrews University.
04 February 2010
Prostitute Jailed For Killing Wife
A man has been sentenced to a minimum of 19 years in prison for murdering his wife and dumping her body inside a suitcase. Paul Grabham, 26, had denied killing his 23-year-old wife Kirsty, whose body was left beneath the M4. The couple had worked as prostitutes, operating from their Rosehill Terrace, Mount Pleasant, Swansea.
29 October 2007
Man Charged In Scrapyard Double Killing
A man has been charged with murder following the discovery of the bodies of an elderly couple at a scrapyard in Staffordshire at the weekend. Richard John Barlow, 29, was charged with the murders of George Barlow, 77, and his wife Joyce, 65, on Sunday. The bodies were discovered in the scrapyard in Uttoxeter.
24 June 2014
British Man Charged With Killing Wife In Grenada
A British man has been charged with killing his wife after her body was discovered in a shallow grave in the Caribbean. Nixiann Downes-Clack's body was discovered in Grenada on Friday after she was reported missing by relatives. A post-mortem examination revealed she died of a blunt force trauma and asphyxiation by strangulation.
05 February 2010
Landowner Convicted Of Killing Wife
A Gloucestershire landowner was today found guilty of murdering his estranged wife, whose body has never been found. Adrian Prout, 47, had denied murdering his 55-year-old wife Kate, he is now expected to be handed down a life sentence following a three week trial.