Snapped 2x1

Adele Craven

Adele and Steven Craven were the perfect suburban couple. Adele was a trained mortician; Steven was a high-flying Delta Airlines pilot with a sky-high salary. They had a beautiful home in upscale Covington, Kentucky; their two young sons loved their school; and Steven could reach the Delta hub at Cincinnati in minutes. Being close to the airport was also convenient for Adele. Unbeknownst to Steven, she was having an affair with Delta baggage handler Rusty McIntyre. But the lovers needed more space-the cops had already caught them having sex in a car in a church parking lot-and they wanted Steven’s $500,000 life insurance payoff. So Adele got Rusty to hire a hit man. For $15,000, small-time crook Ronald Pryor agreed to bludgeon Steven to death with a crow bar. On the morning of July 12, 2000, the three attacked Steven in the Craven’s basement. When twelve blows of the crow bar didn’t kill her husband, Adele gave Pryor a loaded pistol to finish the job. Within days, all three were arrested and charged with murder. Tried together in June 2001, McIntyre and Pryor were convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Adele cried at her trial in November 2002, swearing she was innocent and dearly loved Steven, a good man and a good father. Steven’s murder was McIntyre’s idea, she said. He stalked her, spied on her, seduced her, and when she tried to break up, he hired Pryor to kill her husband. To escape the death penalty, McIntyre turned State’s witness, but Pryor refused to testify. The jury couldn’t decide who to believe and on December 6 the judge declared a mistrial. In a second trial scheduled to begin in January 2004, both McIntyre and Pryor agreed to testify against Adele. Feeling the noose tighten around her neck, she pleaded guilty to masterminding the murder-for-hire plot. She received a life sentence without the possibility of parole for twenty years. All three are currently serving time in the Kentucky prison system.