Ann Marie Anastasi, 42, lived with her husband, Anthony, in a rental home in Lothian, Maryland. The couple had five kids together. Before moving to Maryland, The Anastasi family lived in Michigan for a while, and during their time there, the couple met and started a shared relationship with 25-year-old Jacqueline Riggs. In the summer of 2015, the couple moved Jacqueline into the basement of their home in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. After a while, Ann decided she no longer wanted to continue the three-way relationship with Riggs and informed her husband that they both needed to end the relationship but Anthony and Jacqueline were not ready to end their affair. They continued to have an intimate connection without Ann. Mr. Anastasi would leave his marital bed at night and go downstairs to the basement to be with Jacqueline. This caused a lot of tension in the household.
On October 5, 2015, Ann called 911 at some point in the early evening to report that her 40-year-old husband, Anthony Anastasi had committed suicide. The police arrived to find Anthony fatally shot from a gunshot wound to his head. A .45 caliber gun lay beside him in the master bedroom. Ann told the police that she had been out running errands all morning and when she returned she found him dead in their bedroom. She told the police that she had heard her husband and Riggs arguing the night before and had not seen him at all since last night.
After securing the scene in the master bedroom, the police entered the basement where Jacqueline Riggs resided. Jacqueline was found dead with multiple knife wounds, she was stabbed 20 times and slashed over 22 times all over her body.
When Ann found out that her husband was still intimate with Riggs she was absolutely furious. Ann confided in her 13-year-old daughter and her then 18-year-old boyfriend Gabriel Struss. Ann convinced her daughter and Mr. Struss to carry out the killings of Anthony and Jacqueline on October 5, 2015. Both Ann and her daughter told Gabriel that Anthony was quite abusive, physically and emotionally. Court documents did state that the marriage did involve several reports of abuse at the hands of Mr. Anastasi.
Once the authorities started to question Ann and her daughter, everything began to fall apart. There were major inconsistencies in their stories. Furthermore, gunshot residue was found on Ann and her clothing. Ann also failed her polygraph test and when the bullet that was recovered from Anthony’s head was tested, it turned out that it was not a match for the gun found at the scene. When Gabriel was questioned, he confessed to the murders of Anthony and Jacqueline. Mr. Struss confirmed what the police already knew, Ann coerced her daughter and her boyfriend to help carry out the vicious and heinous crimes committed. He informed the police that Ann planned the entire thing, even picking him up late on October 4, 2015, and providing him with the murder weapon. The plan was to wait until everyone was asleep and then he would shoot Anthony and then go down to the basement where he would then stab Jacqueline to death.
The prosecuting attorney said, “Ann Anastasi destroyed multiple lives by coldly planning these murders and manipulating children into executing her vicious plan. Were it not for Mrs. Anastasi at the helm of this scheme, the victims would still be alive today.” Ann Marie Anastasi destroyed multiple lives that night by coldly planning the murder of her husband and his lover over infidelity and jealousy.
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