Minn. church elder's trial over poisoning, shooting of wife gets under way

Those were the opening arguments in the trial of Stephen Allwine that began Tuesday, Jan. 23.

A 15-member jury will determine whether Allwine is guilty of of first-degree premeditated murder.

Allwine was originally charged with second-degree murder in January 2017. That charge was raised to first-degree after a grand jury indicted Allwine in March.

Cottage Grove police arrested Allwine, 43, after a two-month investigation into the death of his wife, Amy Allwine.

Authorities responding to a 911 call from Stephen Allwine found his wife dead in her Cottage Grove home in November 2016.

She had sustained a gunshot wound to the head. A medical examination later revealed excessive doses of scopolamine, a drug used to treat nausea, in her body.

Amy did not have a prescription for that drug.

Prosecutors allege her husband accessed the Dark Web, a hidden portion of the internet associated with crime, to hire a hitman to kill his wife. After several plans fell through, prosecutors said, he poisoned her and shot her with the family's 9mm gun.

Kevin Devore, Stephen's defense attorney, said the timeline leading up to the death would have made it impossible for Stephen Allwine to have killed her.

The state, Devore said, built a case on "theories with gaps" and used speculation to "bridge those gaps."

Washington County Attorney Jamie Krueser described Amy Allwine as a loving mother, dog lover, business owner and a woman of faith — not the type of person who would die by suicide.

"Who would want to do this?" Kreuser said of the woman's alleged murder. "Someone who didn't want to be married to her anymore."

Stephen Allwine wrote sermons and counseled married couples at a Newport Church where he served as a deacon and later a church elder.

Through those capacities, Krueser said, he learned about Ashley Madison, a dating website catering to married people seeking affairs.

Investigators, according to the criminal complaint, identified at least two women he met through the website.

Devore acknowledged his relationships with other women, but said having affairs doesn't mean he killed his wife "or even didn't love his wife."

Krueser said his role as an elder and longtime congregant at the church could have kept him from divorcing his wife, despite wishes to end the marriage.

Officials with the FBI had been in contact with the family since anonymous emails Amy Allwine received in July of 2016 graphically threatening to harm her family if she did not commit suicide.

Investigators who searched her husband's computer, according to the complaint, found searches for the names of his wife's family members.

The emails were sent through a Tor, or an anonymous router used to access the Dark Web..

prosecutors believe

FBI officials contacted Cottage Grove police in early 2016 about someone accessing the Dark Web and soliciting Amy Allwine's murder under the username "dogdaygod" on a "Besa Mafia," a website associated with hired murders and assaults.

The user, prosecutors said, provided Besa Mafia with her description and whereabouts.

The user discussed two possible attempts to kill her, neither of which transpired.

Several months later, the same user inquired on a different Dark Web site about purchasing scopolamine, the drug found in Amy's body, using a virtual currency called bitcoins.

In the search of the Allwine home following Amy's death, detectives found a document back up on his computer from his phone containing a bitcoin code, a sequence Krueser said would have been "virtually impossible to replicate."

Investigators found the same code posted to the Besa Mafia website by user "dogdaygod."

Devore questioned the credibility of the computer analyst who performed forensic examinations on the computers and said the investigation of Allwine's home had been "contaminated."

Police officers, Devore said, removed the gun found near Amy Allwine's body to remove bullets and take photos before returning it to its original position.

Devore pointed to at least three neighbors who reported seeing Amy Allwine outside her home the night of her death and reported hearing two vehicles "racing" out of the neighborhood around then.

"It sounds like an amazing story," Devore said, but he said the narrative was more akin to a movie.

Allwine's trial will continue the rest of the week in a Washington County courtroom.