A panicked Marissa DeVault contacted 911 one night in January 2009 to report an assault on her husband Dale Harrell. A complicated investigation that included accusations of abuse, financial motivation, and confessions from several people then took place. Marissa’s case is explored in depth in the second half of Investigation Discovery’s “Deadly Sins: No Forgiveness: A Love Triangle Tangle,” which explores how the authorities ultimately managed to convict her. Let’s investigate what occurred, shall we?
Marissa DeVault: who is she?
Marissa DeVault was born and raised in Arizona, and the show depicts her childhood as being less than ideal. At the time, her stepfather sexually assaulted her. Marissa started working as a stripper after graduating from high school but soon lost her job. She later met and wed Dale Harrell. At the time of the occurrence, the couple was living in Gilbert, Arizona, and they had three children together. On January 14, 2009, at about 2:45 am, Marissa called 911 to report that Dale had been attacked.
At first, Marissa insisted that Dale choked her until she passed out. She added that when she awoke, she was underneath Dale and witnessed their housemate Stanley Cook Jr. striking Dale in the head with a hammer. Stanley originally acknowledged the assault but later asserted that he was experiencing memory loss as a result of a motorcycle accident in 1998. At the age of 34, Dale passed away a few weeks after the incident.
The police didn’t take Marissa’s claim that Stanley assaulted Dale seriously. According to the official study, Dale was alone in bed, lying on his left side when he was attacked, and Marissa could not have been under him. This was supported by the bloodstain evidence found at the site. She eventually admitted to hitting her husband with a hammer and said it was because she had been physically and sexually abused for years.
Later, the detectives found out about Allen Flores, whom Marissa had met online through a “sugar daddies” website. She had borrowed more than $300,000 from him at the time and was required to repay it. Even Allen had contributed to Stanley’s letter of confession. Later, he gave a statement in support of the prosecution in which he said that Marissa had discussed killing Dale or having him killed. According to testimony from a different ex-boyfriend of Marissa’s, she requested him to “take care of” her spouse but he refused.
Today, where is Marissa DeVault?
In the end, the prosecution came to the conclusion that Marissa DeVault murdered Dale to obtain the insurance money. The jury finally refused to believe Marissa’s claim that she killed Dale in self-defense because of witness testimony, bloodstain evidence, and her contradictory comments. However, despite claims from friends and family that Dale never mistreated Marissa, their girls said that her father frequently battered her mother. Marissa was convicted of first-degree murder in April 2014.
Marissa, who was 36 at the time, received a life sentence without the possibility of parole in the same month. Prior to receiving her punishment, she expressed regret and said, “I can’t do anything more than say I’m sorry. I can’t push a back button, I can’t bring him back, I can’t correct all that was wrong, and I wouldn’t even know where to go back to if I had this button. I wish I could undo what happened because I sincerely regret it. She is still detained at the Arizona State Prison Complex – Perryville in Goodyear, Maricopa County, according to prison records.