Husband who executed wife’s lover in ambush is jailed for life
A JEALOUS builder who shot dead his wife’s lover in a carefully planned execution has been jailed for life.
Andrew Jones, 53, discovered Michael O’Leary, 55, was having an affair with his wife Rhianon, 51, and lured him to a rendezvous, a court heard.
After gunning him down, Jones tried to make it look like Mr O’Leary – his friend of 25 years – had killed himself.
He then burnt Mr O’Leary’s body – which has never been found – at his home.
Jones, of Carmarthen, South Wales, had denied murder, claiming he wanted to frighten Mr O’Leary and there was a struggle.
But he was convicted after a trial at Swansea Crown Court.
The court heard father- ofthree Mr O’Leary was murdered last January 27 after Jones secretly used his wife’s phone to promise “a cuddle” if her lover went to a remote farm in Carmarthenshire.
Instead, he found her husband crouched behind a bin armed with a .22 rifle. Mr O’Leary had begged for his life.
William Hughes QC, prosecuting, told Jones: “You took considered steps to lure him there under false pretences that he was going to meet Rhianon and when he did get there, far from there being a scuffle you described, you in cold blood shot him dead.”
After the murder, Jones sent messages from Mr O’Leary’s
phone to his victim’s wife, saying: “I am so sorry x.”
Dyfed- Powys Police was then alerted by Mr O’Leary’s worried family.
In her sentencing remarks, Mrs Justice Jefford said that by making Mr O’Leary’s death look like suicide, Jones had put
the victim’s family through additional trauma.
His actions were, she added: “Acts of cowardice which have deprived the O’Leary family of a funeral with a body to bury and one of the key elements of processing their grief.”
She said Mr O’Leary had
done something wrong by having the affair, but “he did not deserve to pay for that with his life”.
Jailing Jones for life, Mrs Justice Jefford said he would have to serve a minimum of 30 years before he could be considered for parole.