LOTHIAN, Md. (AP) – A woman recruited her 13-year-old daughter and the girl’s boyfriend in a plot to kill her husband and their 25-year-old lover, who lived in the family’s basement, police said Friday.
The mother and her husband had both been involved with the woman, Jacqueline Riggs, but the couple’s 18-year marriage, which was “fraught with conflict and domestic abuse,” became more strained as the wife fell out of the love triangle, according to charging documents.
The mother and daughter decided to kill Riggs and the girl’s 40-year-old father and recruited the girl’s boyfriend, 18-year-old Gabriel Struss, to help, police said. The woman initially told police her husband committed suicide, but authorities said the cover-up unraveled as investigators learned the evidence didn’t match her story.
Now the 42-year-old mother, her daughter and the boyfriend face first-degree murder charges. The girl is charged as a juvenile. The Associated Press generally does not identify juveniles charged with crimes and is not naming her parents to avoid identifying the girl.
The 13-year-old’s grandfather says she is one of the couple’s five children.