According to the New York Post, a former U.S. Marine from Long Island, NY, will spend 25 years to life in prison for killing his pregnant wife because he did not want the baby and did not want to pay for the child’s health insurance.
Michael Owen, 30, had been convicted in the killing of his estranged, pregnant wife Kelly Owen when she was pregnant with their second child in 2020. Owen was sentenced on Thursday, though he denies killing her.
Owen and his wife had been married in 2013, had a daughter that same year, and had been arguing over medical insurance and money at the time of Kelly’s murder, according to Nassau County Police Detective Lt. Stephen Fitzpatrick.
“He did not want this child. He did not want to give her medical insurance. He had this new relationship he was involved in, and he was in a bad position,” said Fitzpatrick.
The couple separated in 2018 but continued to have a “physical and intimate” relationship while Kelly lived with her parents, brother, and her daughter. Michael drove to that house on January 15, 2020 “with the intention of killing” Kelly, said Nassau District Attorney Anne Donnelly.
READ: Abortion is not the answer to rising numbers of pregnant women dying by homicide
When Kelly did not arrive at her job as an aide at an elementary school, a co-worker called her parents, Frank and Diane Bretana, who found Kelly at home, facedown on her bed. She had been strangled, and a medical examiner determined that she had died of asphyxiation.
“He killed her in a violent and personal way,” said her father, Frank Bretana. “He knew he had to continue until he knew she was gone. He knew he would have to watch her die.”
Michael Owen’s DNA was found on Kelly’s neck, but he and his attorney, Joseph Hanshe, maintain that he is innocent. “I did not do this,” he said before his sentencing. Hanshe has filed an appeal.
Homicide is now the leading cause of death for pregnant women in the United States, and has been since approximately 2018. Women in the U.S. who are pregnant or have recently given birth are more likely to be murdered than to die from obstetric causes. Their murders are often linked to intimate partner violence.
