BARNSTABLE, Mass. — A 78-year-old Cape Cod man has been given the mandatory sentence of life without parole for hiring someone to kill his estranged wife in 1980.

Edmond Carriere Jr. was sentenced Wednesday in Barnstable Superior court, one day after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder in the death of Frances Carriere. Prosecutors said he paid $10,000 to two men to kill his wife, found stabbed to death in her home in Bourne.

Carriere was long a suspect but was not arrested and charged until 2010, when prosecutors said a witness stepped forward to implicate him.

The Cape Cod Times reports that one of the couple’s four children, Linda McCraney, read an emotional statement in court Wednesday about the loss of her mother, saying, “We can’t call her, we can’t talk to her, we can’t hug her.”

This story will be updated shortly.

 

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A 78-year-old Cape Cod man was convicted Tuesday of first-degree murder for hiring someone to kill his estranged wife more than three decades ago.

Edmond Carriere Jr. was convicted in Barnstable Superior Court of paying $10,000 to two men to kill Frances Carriere, who was found stabbed to death in the bathroom of her home in the Buzzards Bay section of Bourne on Jan. 3, 1980. Jurors deliberated for three hours.

Authorities say the woman, whose body was found by a male friend, was stabbed multiple times with such force that her aorta was severed and her heart and lungs punctured.

Edmond Carriere was long a suspect but was not arrested and charged until 2010, when prosecutors said a witness stepped forward to implicate him.

Steven Stewart, of Brockton, testified at trial that Carriere hired him to kill Frances Carriere, who was 44 at the time of her death. The Carrieres, parents of four children, were going through a bitter divorce at the time.

Stewart was convicted of murder in 2005, but after the state’s highest court overturned his conviction, he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and agreed to testify against Edmond Carriere.

Another suspect, Richard Grebauski of Wareham, was never charged in the killing and died in 2004.

Edmond Carriere had long maintained his innocence and said he was in Florida at the time his wife was killed.

He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole at sentencing scheduled for Wednesday.

His lawyer, Jack Atwood, told the Cape Cod Times that while disappointed with the verdict, he is confident it will be overturned on appeal based on rulings during the trial that he did not elaborate on.

He also questioned the veracity of Stewart’s testimony, saying he had been offered leniency.

The Carrieres’ children, who were in their early teens to early 20s at the time of the killing, did not comment after the verdict but could make victim-impact statements before sentencing.

“He’s guilty, thank God,” Gerry Derochea, Frances Carriere’s sister-in-law, said outside court.