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Man pushes wife off cliff to her death

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A Colorado man has been found guilty of pushing his wife off a cliff to her death.

According to CBS Denver News, the jury took 10 hours to find Harold Henthorn, 59, guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his second wife.

The couple were hiking in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park to celebrate their  12th wedding anniversary on Sept 29 2012. 

Hethorn claimed that his wife had paused to take a photo of the view when she fell face-first over the ledge. 

The wealthy Mississipi native, 50, plummeted to her death about 39m off the cliff in a remote, rocky area.

Prosecutors argued during the two-week long trial that Henthorn had carefully planned Toni Henthorn's death to look like an accident.

His accounts of the fatal fall were inconsistent and the evidence did not match.

The court heard that Henthorn had scouted the remote area of the park nine times to find the "perfect place to murder someone" before bringing his wife there, where there would be no witnesses and no chance of her surviving.

A park map with an "X" drawn at the spot where his wife fell was also found in his Jeep.

Autopsy reports could not determine whether she had fallen or was pushed and no evidence of CPR was performed, as claimed by Henthorn.

He stood to gain US$4.7 million (S$6.7 million) from Toni's life insurance that she did not know existed.

Henthorn faces a mandatory life term when he is sentenced on Dec 8, reported CNN.

Police have re-opened the investigations of the death of Henthorn's first wife Sandra Lynn Henthorn, who was fatally crushed when a car slipped off a jack when they were changing a flat tyre in 1995 - coincidentally several months after their 12th wedding anniversary.

Sources: CBS Denver News, CNN

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