Mich. Woman Lit Her Husband on Fire and Then Ran Him Over With The Family Van, Jury Finds

A Michigan woman has been found guilty for lighting her husband on fire and then running him over with a van and killing him in 2007, according to reports.

Linda Stermer was found guilty on two counts of murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to local outlets WWMT, WOOD-TV, and MLive.

Stermer, 60, was convicted of dousing her husband Todd Stermer in gasoline and lighting him on fire shortly after he had discovered she was having an affair, according to WOOD-TV. Stermer then ran him over with a van while trying to escape the scene, a jury found last Friday, the outlet reported.

Todd died in the yard of their home, according to WOOD-TV. He was 42 years old.

The Stermers’ two adult children and nephew, whom the couple also raised, testified against her during the trial, according to MLive. 

One of her sons, Trevor Stermer, said the argument that his parents had after his father found out his mother was cheating on him was “the worst argument that we had witnessed.”

Trevor later testified that his mother — whom he no longer refers to as his mother, according to MLive — had instructed her children to lie for her to cover up the murder.

“She wanted to downplay the severeness of the fight,” Trevor testified, according to MLive. “It was severe. It was the most heated argument I heard from my parents. Second, no talks of divorce with the insurance agent and three, she said to tell them it was a chimney fire.”

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

The outlet reports that Stermer was previously convicted of her husband’s killing in 2010 and sentenced to life in prison, but was released in 2018 after her defense team successfully appealed her initial conviction based on misconduct by the previous prosecutor, as well as what was determined to be an ineffective defense team.

Stermer has long denied killing her husband on purpose, according to MLive, arguing that she ran him over with the van by accident while trying to escape the fire to go get help. Her defense team reportedly argued that the fire started from one of her husband’s oil lamps.

“Look at two things,” Stermer’s defense attorney, Wolf Mueller, told the jury during his closing arguments, according to the outlet. “Was the fire intentionally set and, if it was, did Linda Stermer set the fire? Those are the simple issues in this case.”

Stermer was found guilty after seven hours of deliberation, according to WWMT. The outlet reports that after the trial, Todd’s friend Larry Norris remembered the father of two as “positive” and “chipper,” and someone who “cared about people.”

“He was well loved and his kids loved him,” Norris added. “And that’s what’s more important than that, you know, than being loved by your family.”