Sort of a woman pleads guilty to swimming elderly husband to death
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41-year-old Christine Newton-John (no relation she changed her name to match her favorite singer) pleaded guilty to reckless homicide after forcing his/her 71-year-old husband to swim until he died.
The swimming marathon was captured by surveillance cameras in the apartment complex.
The tape shows 43 separate occasions in which Newton-John prevented her husband from leaving the water. She dragged him around by his arms and legs. On several occasions, he laid his head on the side of the pool gasping for breath.
Middlefield Police Chief Joseph Stehlik said “You can see the man struggling for his life on the tape, but there is no audio so we couldn’t hear what he was saying. All in all, I’m satisfied with the plea.”
“I think he was victimized for years by her,” he said.
A grand jury had indicted Newton-John for reckless homicide to which she pleaded guilty for a lesser jail term.
The homicidal swimming instructor was born John Vallandingham but decided he was too gorgeous (see picture) and decided to take the name Newton-John.
In 2006, Newton-John and Mason married in Kentucky, a state which allows people to change the gender on their birth certificate thereby permitting the marriage.
“Newton-John always said Mason was touched, a little slow,” Stehlik said. “Family members believed the marriage was not for sex but companionship. It almost appears that if Newton-John had said, ‘We’re getting married,’ Mason would have done it.”
The 71-year-old James Mason had been a friend of the future bride’s family since before Newton-John had been born a man.
The grandmother ran a boarding house operated by Newton-John’s grandmother and the two shared a bedroom.
The heart attack death would have likely been accepted as natural causes were it not for a police officer noticing the surveillance camera fixed above the pool.
The police chief admitted this was the strangest case he had ever investigated.

