Pittsburgh Brain Surgeon Gets Life for Poisoning Wife With Cyanide-Spiked Diet Drink
Autumn Klein
(Reuters) — A University of Pittsburgh neurological surgery professor was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday after his first-degree murder conviction in the poisoning death of his wife, who was also a doctor.
Dr. Robert Ferrante, 66, appeared before Judge Jeffrey Manning at the Allegheny County Courthouse in Pennsylvania but did not speak on his own behalf, according to one of his lawyers, Wendy Williams.
His lawyer’s request for a new trial was not granted, but could be considered as a post-sentencing motion once supplementary material was added.
“All the evidence against him was circumstantial,” Williams said. “It’s just sad,” she added.
Ferrante was accused of poisoning his wife, Dr. Autumn Klein, 41, by lacing her dietary supplement drink with cyanide ordered through his research lab at the university.
A Pittsburgh jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in November, making him subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Shortly after his conviction, a second woman, who like Klein was an employee of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, was found dead of cyanide poisoning. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner recently ruled that the death of Nicole Kotchey, 35, was a suicide.
Before the sentencing, Prosecutor Lisa Pellegrini read victim impact statements on behalf of Autumn Klein’s family, including her parents.
Her mother, Lois Klein, who is caring for Ferrante’s daughter, Cianna, 8, wrote: “This child now, is not only without a mother – she is also without a father.”
During the trial, Pellegrini told jurors that the couple’s marriage was troubled and that Klein may have been about to leave her husband.
Ferrante “wanted her dead, dead, dead” and felt that if he could not have Klein, then “no one will,” Pellegrini said in her closing arguments.
Ferrante’s other lawyer, William Difenderfer, argued that Klein did not die of cyanide poisoning and contended Ferrante ordered the substance for clinical research purposes.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
