A mother has received a 40-year prison sentence for murdering her ex-husband to prevent him from having access to their children.
Timothy Hovanec was employed by the US Department of State, a body that provides advice to the President on foreign policy matters and engages in treaty negotiations and agreements with foreign nations and entities.
In 2018, Timothy and his wife Amanda Hovanec relocated to South Africa with their three children due to Timothy’s work assignment. During their stay, Amanda, then 37, established a relationship with a South African citizen named Anthony Theodorou.
Upon their return to the United States, Amanda, residing in the small city of Wapakoneta, Ohio, filed for divorce from her then-husband, 36, in 2020.
In the following year, December 2021, Amanda began blocking Timothy from seeing their children, despite a court order allowing visitation rights.
In an effort to spend time with his children, Timothy filed several contempt motions against her.
This resulted in a judge ruling in April 2022 that the children were to have visitation with their father and that Timothy would assume the role of residential parent and legal custodian for two months that summer, starting in May.
Before this arrangement commenced, Timothy picked up the children from their Wapakoneta home for a weekend visit. However, upon returning them home, he disappeared.
The hotel where he was staying subsequently filed a missing person report.
In the course of their investigation, police found Timothy’s car abandoned in Dayton, Ohio, and discovered dashcam footage of the incident inside.
The footage, dated April 24, 2022, around 7pm, shows Amanda and her mother, Anita Green, waiting outside the house, with Green saying: “I have a surprise for you inside.”
After the children enter the house, Green follows them in, and Amanda is seen approaching the driver’s side of the vehicle. She is heard saying off-camera: “What the heck are you doing? Did you just assault me?”
She then adds: “Get away from me… Get off of me.”
As Timothy attempts to use his cellphone, Amanda is seen grabbing his shirt, wrestling him, and knocking the phone from his hand, eventually pulling him to the ground and restraining him until he becomes motionless.
Initially denying any part in his disappearance, Amanda eventually confessed to injecting her estranged husband in the shoulder with a ‘poison’ she believed would be lethal within minutes.
She revealed that she and Theodorou had already prepared a grave for him and that the South African had acquired M-99, an anesthetic used on rhinos, which is about 1,000 times more potent than morphine.
Her mother then agreed to transport the pair to the site where Timothy’s grave was located, and they buried him there.
Theodorou received an 18-year prison sentence and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to conspiracy to import, importation, and distribution of a controlled substance leading to death.
He was additionally ordered to pay $2,108,559.36 in restitution, a portion of which is to be paid jointly and severally with Amanda and Green.
Anita Green was sentenced to 10 years in prison and two years of supervised release after admitting guilt as an accessory to the crimes committed by Amanda Hovanec and Anthony Theodorou.