An Act Of Murder

Fatal Blaze?

"The Bride Who Cried." That was the title of the dinner-theater murder mystery presented at Maryland's luxurious Harbourtowne resort on Valentine's Day weekend, 1998. But no tears were being shed by Kimberly Hricko at 3 a.m. when she reported a fire in the room she shared with her husband, Stephen. Rescuers found him dead, badly burned around the upper body. It seemed that he'd fallen asleep while smoking a cigar, sparking off an inferno.

Staged Murder

But Kimberly's efforts to play the part of an innocent widow quickly began to unravel. Sleuths learned that she had been having an affair with a man ten years her junior. She also stood to inherit $400,000 on her husband's death--and had tried to bribe a coworker to kill Stephen for $50,000. In the courtroom, prosecutors argued that Kimberly injected her sleeping spouse with a lethal dose of muscle relaxant and set the fire to cover her tracks. For a cold-blooded killer who acted without remorse, there could only be one verdict. . .

Linda Rosencrance has fifteen years experience as a reporter, writing for both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald, as well as many community papers in the Boston metropolitan area. She is the author of Murder at Morses Pond and has also written an anthology examining various crimes on college campuses. She lives in the Boston area.