The wife of a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader has admitted to murdering her husband and abandoning his body in a river.
Frank Ancona Jr, the so-called “Imperial Wizard” who led a Missouri faction of the KKK, was found dead on a river bank, days after being reported missing.
He had been shot in the head.
“I fired both shots that killed my husband,” Malissa Ancona told a judge on Friday, according to the St Louis Post Dispatch.
She was sentenced to life in prison under a deal in which she agreed to plead guilty to charges of second-degree murder, tampering with evidence and abandoning a corpse.
Ms Ancona said she cleaned blood off her bedroom walls and disposed of stained bedding in order to hide her crime.
Her confession followed several different accounts of her husband’s death.
The widow had previously claimed her son, Paul Jinkerson Jr, had shot her sleeping husband with a 9mm handgun.
Both Ms Ancona and her son were charged with murder in 2017.
The 46-year-old later agreed to testify against her son, but changed her story in a letter written from jail.
In the letter Ms Ancona told Wendy Wexler Horn, the circuit judge overseeing her case, that she had been “under the influence” at the time of her husband’s death.
She also claimed she could not recall what had happened during the shooting.
Mr Jinkerson Jr is still awaiting trial on the earlier murder charge.
Asked how his mother’s plea would affect the trial, his lawyer, Eric Barnhart, responded, “I mean the true killer...”
He paused before having his sentence finished by Mr Jinkerson Jr’s father: “admitted her guilt today.”
Frank Ancona Jr’s father, Frank Ancona Sr, told the judge on Friday that he had identified his son’s body, which he described as having “no face left”.
He also said his daughter-in-law was a “terrible wife” and said his son planned on leaving her.
Mr Ancona Jr was a major figure in a group called Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
According to the group’s official website, it aims to “preserve our white culture and heritage but also be relevant to the happenings going on in our republic today.”
The title “Imperial Wizard” is given to a national leader within the group.
Mr Ancona Jr’s daughter, Carolyn, spoke through tears on Friday.
“He didn’t deserve this,” she said. “No one deserves this.”
Additional reporting by agencies
