How a hot-tub row led to bloodshed
She’d been caught telling tall tales, but trying to kill her ex in cold blood..?
The injured pair were rushed to hospital
When Linda and Jeffrey Dolloff said their vows on board a cruise ship off the coast of Florida in 1998, it should’ve been the start of their happyever-after life together. Jeffrey was a high-powered management consultant, while Linda worked as a yoga instructor. Together, the pair built their dream home in Standish, Maine, USA, using timber they cut and milled themselves. For Linda, the centrepiece of the home was her specially built yoga studio.
She also loved gardening and pottery.
The Dolloffs seemingly had everything. But, behind closed doors,
it seemed trouble was brewing.
As soon as the couple moved in, they started sleeping in separate bedrooms.
Linda didn’t get on with Jeffrey’s three daughters from a previous relationship.
It caused tension in the marriage. And, soon, the couple were discussing divorce.
But every time their arguments got serious, Jeffrey and Linda would reconcile.
Their relationship was like a speeding roller-coaster ride – always up and down.
By March 2009, Jeffrey had had enough.
But Linda was holding back. While Jeffrey wanted out, she was worried about losing her idyllic home.
Adamant the couple should separate, Jeffrey told Linda to write down everything that she wanted out of the divorce.
Soon after, Jeffrey and Linda agreed to the final terms in their hot tub.
Sitting together among the bubbles, they reached an agreement that gave Linda half of the couple’s home, worth around $130,000 (around £100,000).
Jeffrey also agreed to give Linda $100,000 (around £80,000) in cash, half ownership of the couple’s farm, and the right to stay in an apartment attached to the couple’s home for a year, with Jeffrey paying all of Linda’s living expenses.
But Linda insisted on permanently staying in the apartment. She couldn’t accept that the marriage was over.
She told Jeffrey that, after six months, he’d realise she was the most special person in his life.
But Jeffrey challenged his wife. He told her that his decision was final.
He reminded Linda that he owned the land the house was built on, and had built the apartment himself.
The settlement was far from amicable.
Two weeks later, in the early hours of 12 April 2009, Linda called the police.
She told them that her husband had been attacked and that she’d been shot by an intruder.
When officers arrived, Jeffrey was unconscious in his bed, but still alive. He was naked and covered in blood.
He’d been brutally attacked with a baseball bat.
Bones in his skull and face were broken and the police didn’t think that he’d survive.
Linda had been shot in the abdomen with a .22 calibre handgun.
The bullet was lodged in her right hip and she would need surgery to repair torn flesh and blood vessels.
The injured pair were rushed to hospital at once.
Jeffrey remained unconscious for a month.
Scans revealed fractures on both sides of his head, a broken nose, both cheek bones broken, and more chipped bones inside his skull. He was lucky to be alive. While the couple recovered in hospital, the police investigated the intrusion.
Nothing of value had been stolen from the house.
Linda told the police that she hadn’t seen the attacker
who’d shot her and almost killed her husband.
And, when Jeffrey finally recovered consciousness, he couldn’t remember anything about the night of the attack.
When the police asked who might’ve wanted to harm him, he told them he had hundreds of enemies.
His job involved making decisions on big-money contracts, deciding who got them and who didn’t.
In some cases, his decisions lost people their jobs.
But the police weren’t convinced that this was a retaliation attack, or a burglary gone wrong.
The investigators started looking into the Dolloffs’ rocky marriage and their impending divorce.
Then Jeffrey told them something important.
Just before the attack, he’d announced that he was bringing another woman to the house Linda loved.
He wanted this woman to meet his mother, the rest of the family, his dog…. Linda was hurt.
For the police, it was a motive. They believed Linda had been unable to accept her husband’s request for divorce.
That she’d decided she’d much rather be a grieving widow than a jilted wife.
So she’d attempted to kill Jeffrey, before shooting herself as a cover-up.
Soon after, Linda Dolloff was arrested and charged with attempted murder, elevated aggravated assault and filing a false police report.
In April 2010, at Cumberland County Superior Court, she pleaded not guilty.
The court heard that Jeffrey Dolloff had been left with life-changing injuries after the attack.
He now had no sense of smell or taste. He would be on medication to prevent blood clots for the rest of his life.
However, Linda’s defence team maintained that an intruder had carried out the attack on the couple. The defence argued that, at 5ft 4in tall, and just 7st 8lb, there was no way that Linda could’ve physically attacked her 6ft 2in husband without him retaliating. But, although slight, Linda Dolloff was far from weak. After all, the yoga enthusiast had helped build her dream home with her own hands. Linda’s friends and family described her as kind and loving. Her sister said she’d never seen her be violent. And what of all the hundreds of enemies Jeffrey Dolloff had told the police about?
Had the investigators even looked into any of them, before deciding Linda was the culprit?
In contrast, the prosecution asserted that Linda was not truthful, and had lied before.
More than 10 years earlier, before the Dolloffs were married, Linda had had a painful cosmetic procedure to make herself a couple of inches taller.
The surgery had involved having her legs fractured.
The recovery had taken weeks – but, instead of telling loved ones the truth about the op, she’d lied and told them she had a bone disease.
They’d thought there was a medical reason behind the procedure. But, in reality, it was simply vanity.
Dr Carlyle Voss, a forensic psychiatrist, argued Linda had a personality disorder.
The prosecutors said Linda’s lie about the leg extensions was a glaring example of her narcissism, her penchant for lying and her willingness to go to extremes to get what she wanted. Including shooting herself. But was a white lie, told over a decade earlier, enough to convict Linda of trying to murder her husband..?
Was linda unable to accept the divorce?
In court in May 2010, Linda Dolloff was found guilty of attempting to kill her husband Jeffrey.
She showed no emotion as the jury delivered its verdict. But, at her sentencing in January 2011, a tearful Linda, then 49, took to the stand to beg for mercy.
Apologising for being a ‘huge burden on the legal system, the court and everyone involved’ Linda maintained her innocence. But it was too late.
Sentencing her to 16 years in prison, Cumberland County Superior Court Justice Joyce Wheeler said, ‘In accepting the jury’s verdict that she did commit these crimes, I have to conclude that she shows no remorse, empathy or responsibility.’