NEW ORLEANS -- A thrice-widowed woman was convicted Friday of second-degree murder in the death of her second husband in 2006 - a complex case that prosecutors in New Orleans said is linked to the unsolved death of her third husband in 2011 in Mississippi.
The verdict came after prosecutors said Emma Raine plotted Ernest Smith's killing with her future third husband, James Raine, who was later shot to death himself in their Poplarville, Mississippi, home. No arrests have been made in James Raine's 2011 death, although authorities say Emma Raine is a suspect.
James Raine's adoptive brother, Alfred "Terry" Everette is serving a life sentence as the trigger man in Smith's death.
The jury's decision was unanimous. Emma Raine faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
"This is the woman who is destroying the lives of every man around her without a care," Assistant District Attorney Laura Rodrigue told the jury, referring to the two dead husbands and Everette.
Another death -- that of Emma Raine's first husband -- has also been deemed suspicious, but the jury didn't hear any testimony about it.
In Everette's 2014 trial, Rodrigue said there were suspicions about Leroy Evans' 1994 death while he was receiving medical care following an automobile accident. Testimony from that case was not allowed in Raine's trial.
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