Jul 17, 2008 10:00 am US/Eastern
Woman Gets 30 Years For Murder & Cover-Up
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
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Murder, theft and a cover-up. A judge sentences Cynthia McKay for killing her boyfriend then trying to hide the trail of evidence.
Murder, theft and a cover-up. A judge sentences Cynthia McKay to 30 years for killing her boyfriend then trying to hide the trail of evidence.
Back in 2006, police found her boyfriend's burning body in Millersville. He had been stabbed, and they say her two sons were part of the cover-up.
Mike Hellgren reports McKay's long history also includes the suspicious death of her former husband, faking her own death and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a seminary in Baltimore.
McKay received the maximum sentence. In a twist Wednesday, she tried to get out of her plea. McKay told the judge she had been in a fight with her boyfriend, he was holding a knife, he tripped over her dog and then stabbed himself. The judge didn't buy it.
McKay entered an Alford plea in this case, meaning she did not admit her guilt but acknowledged prosecutors had enough evidence to convict her.
The mother of six has a long and troubled history with law enforcement, capped Wednesday with her sentencing for the murder of her boyfriend Anthony Fertitta in Millersville more than two years ago.
Investigators say she was stealing money from him, and before stabbing him, she doused his body with gasoline and set him on fire. Her son Christopher Haarhoff pleaded guilty as an accessory after the fact.
Another son, Matthew Haarhoff, pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to murder Thursday. He was sentenced to 18 months, but all were suspended. He will be on probation for three years. The judge ordered him not to have contact with his mother for a year. He will now go live with his father in Florida.
McKay met Fertitta shortly after she got out of prison for embezzling more than $200,000 from St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore City where she worked.
She was captured at a battered women's shelter in Virginia after police say she faked her own death in Ocean City, leaving behind a suicide note inside her Hyundai SUV parked by the beach and an inflatable raft.
Before that, relatives of her former husband, Clarence Downs III, questioned her involvement in a suspicious fire inside their home in Halethorpe which killed him. It was initially ruled an accident, but Baltimore County police re-opened the case after Fertitta's murder. It is open to his day. She has never been charged in connection with his death.
McKay also served jail time for stealing money from an Annapolis business. After the owner began investigating the suspected theft, his business was burned down by arson. No one was ever charged with setting the fire.
McKay will serve her sentence in Jessup, where she has served time before.
Anthony Fertitta's family has released a statement on Cynthia McKay's sentencing:
"My brother who would never hurt a fly was taken from this world, not by God, but by this evil woman who steals, but yet she not only takes his life but his identity also. I still, to this day, mourn the loss of my brother. I don't understand how a person so evil can do all of this and show or feel no remorse. I feel as if this woman should never walk the streets of freedom again."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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