A DeKalb County jury has — again — convicted a man of strangling his wife, tossing her into the bed of his pickup truck and driving to Virginia to drop off their children before turning himself in to police.
Dennis Allaben was sentenced to life in prison late Thursday for murdering Maureen Allaben, an effervescent set designer for "The Mo'Nique Show" on BET and a well-known food stylist who prepared displays in advertising photographs.
The life prison term is the same sentence he received when he was tried the first time for his wife's 2010 murder. Allaben had to be retried after the Georgia Supreme Court threw out his conviction on the grounds that he could not be convicted of both reckless conduct and murder for the same crime. The justices said the jury had to find there was no intent to harm her to convict him of reckless conduct. Murder requires intent.
Dennis Allaben admitted killing her, but he claimed it was an accident. He said he lost control of his emotions because she was trying to poison him. He also said she was monitoring his movements on GPS and computer. Those allegations were never proven.
According to testimony, on Jan. 3, 2010, Dennis Allaben swaddled his wife's body in a packing blanket, put her in the bed of his truck and drove to Virginia to drop off their son, then 7, and daughter, then 8, with relatives.
According to testimony, he told his sister-in-law he had killed his wife. He also told his children he had murdered their mother.
Two days after killing her, Dennis Allaben returned to Georgia and drove directly to a friend’s home in Clayton County. He told a Clayton police officer who lived two doors from the friend that he had killed his wife and she was in his truck. By then, Maureen Allaben’s body was frozen, having been outside in the cold for two days.
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