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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A judge in Tennessee has acquitted a woman accused of killing her husband and staging his death to look like a suicide after testimony wrapped up during her third trial.
News outlets report Special Judge Paul Summers announced his decision on Wednesday, right before the jury was to begin deliberations in the case against 68-year-old Raynella Dossett Leath. Summers ruled that prosecutors did not present sufficient evidence for the case to go to the jury.
Leath's first trial ended with a deadlocked jury. She was convicted in a 2010 retrial and sentenced to between 51 years and life in prison. She won a new trial last year after an investigation found that Knox County Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner used drugs during her trial.
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