Kristin Rossum

Blond, spunky, & ambitious, Kristin Rossum seemed to be going places. A summa cum laude graduate of San Diego State University, she worked as a toxicologist at the San Diego medical examiner's office. Her husband, Greg, worked for an up-and-coming biotech firm. Well-educated, highly intelligent, and good-looking, their future seemed limitless. But Kristin's picture-perfect life came to an end on November 6, 2000, when she returned home from work and found Greg dead of an apparent suicide, his body covered in rose petals. At autopsy, police discovered Greg had died from an overdose of the drug, Fentanyl. Fentanyl, cops soon found out, was a drug Kristin had a lot of contact with at her toxicology job. When police learned that a large amount of the drug had been reported missing from the lab where Kristin worked, they hauled her in for Greg's murder. At her trial, prosecutors said that Kristin had poisoned Greg with the drug and then covered his body with rose petals mimicking a scene from her favorite movie, "American Beauty" in an effort to make the cops believe the death was a suicide. As for motive, prosecutors asserted that Kristin had developed a secret addiction to crystal methamphetamine. When Greg threatened to expose Kristin's drug habits, she plotted his death with a co-worker she'd been having an affair with. Portrayed as a lying and manipulative druggie, the jury found Kristin guilty of Greg's murder and sentenced her to life in prison.