Married to Monsters

In what can only be described as an heinous attempt to get rid of an estranged spouse, biochemist Larissa Schuster was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after she was found guilty in the murder of her husband.

The details are gruesome: The 47-yr.-old Schuster and a former lab assistant, James Fagone, murdered Schuster’s estranged spouse, Timothy Schuster, back in July of 2003. The two immobilized Schuster with a stun gun then slapped a chloroform-soaked rag across his face. Schuster’s feet and hands were bound, then the horror part: he was dumped, head first into a 55-gallon drum, where hydrochloric acid was poured over him while, prosecutors claim, he was still alive.

Schuster’s body was found days after he was reported missing in a storage unit rented by his wife. By then half of his body had dissolved, only the lower part, from the belt down, remained.

Schuster’s wife was convicted under special circumstances because the prosecution proved she stood to make financial gain from her husband’s death. They had been married nearly twenty years.

Larissa Schuster isn’t an anomaly in the world of long term marriages where one partner murders the other for financial gain. In hindsight, the biochemist had less to lose settling financially with her husband instead of murdering him by way of an acid vat.

Schuster joins the ranks of other professionals who, rather than splitting up the martial property, terminate their long-term partner.

The Prominent Allergist

Dr. Dirk Greineder capivated CourtTV audiences during his trial with his version of what transpired in a park near he and his wife’s Wellesley home back in 1999. Greineder, a prominent allergist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, denied he was the one who murdered his wife while the two were out “for a walk”.

Dr. Dirk Greineder

Greineder and his wife had been married for 31 years. The prosecution’s theory was that Greineder’s wife had discovered his stash of internet porn and his addiction to prostitutes. Greineder wasn’t charged until after his wife’s funeral where he described her as someone with an “intense personal responsibility and commitment” and “ethical bearing”.

May Greineder

As for financial gain in the Dr. Dirk Case, both he and his wife took out $500,000 life insurance policies two days before she was murdered.

They had gone for a morning walk at the park where she was hit with a large hammer then her throat slit with a knife. Dr. Dirk claimed that they had split up and had taken different routes and that he had “found” her body. A jury found him guilty of capital murder and sentenced to life without parole in 2001.

The Popular Rabbi

Rabbi Fred Neulander

The charismatic Rabbi Fred Neulander had built up one of the largest reform synagogues in New Jersey back in the early 1990’s. Prosecutors claimed he hired two men to bludgeon his wife to death in the family home in 1994 because he wanted to continue a “romance” with another woman.

Carol Neulander

Neulander told authorities he had returned home to find his 52-yr.-old wife beaten to death on the living room floor. Her purse was at the scene but was missing money, her wedding ring was still on her finger. The rabbi wasn’t arrested until 4 years later. It wasn’t until 2003 that Neulander was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

Neulander and his wife Carol had been married 29 years.

Greineder, Neulander, and now Schuster have discovered that some people do not “get away with murder”. All three now face the fact that they will spend rest of their lives living in a small cell with limited access to the outside world.

What’s astounding, at least in the case of Neulander and Greineder’s wives, is that friends and family described the two women as loving, supportive partners who had helped raise lovely children. Yet the two men felt that they had more to gain by their wives’ death. Now Schuster joins their rank after she made the decision to dissolve her husband’s body rather than their marriage.

What’s also amazing is that all three chose to end their spouse’s lives in such a violent manner. Greineder took his wife to a local park where he struck her in the head with a hammer, then slit her throat. Neulander hired two men to come into the family home and beat his wife to death. Friends and family later remarked that during the Jewish period of grieving, or shiva, Rabbi Neulander had relaxed in an easy chair in the same room where his wife was murdered. Schuster, with the help of another man, used a stun gun and chloroform on her husband before they bound him and then put him into a 55 gallon drum and poured acid on him.

You’d think after 20 – 30 plus years of marriage, Neulander, Schuster, and Greineder would have felt some sort of compassion for their spouses. But then again, their motive was greed, pure and simple, their spouses’ deaths, an end to a means. As for their spouses, they had no idea they were married to a monster who would one day take their life.

By LBG

Image – Larissa Schuster
Source – Neulander denies guilt, gets life sentence
Source – Fred and Carol Neulander
Source – Secret Life, Murdered Wife
Image – Court Tv
Source - CourtTv – Doctor Convicted of Killing Wife loses bid in new trial
Source – Charlotte Observer – Chemist Gets Life For Killing Husband in acid vat