TODD Sommer was, by all accounts, a strong and healthy man.
In fact, the 23-year-old was a member of the US Marine Corp, one of the toughest military outfits in the country.
That's why relatives found it strange when Mr Sommer suddenly collapsed and died in February 2002 at the San Diego home he shared with his wife, Cynthia, their infant son, her three children from a previous marriage.
Even more strange was how his wife mourned his death.
Just weeks after he was laid to rest, Sommer cashed in her husband's US$250,000 ($380,000) life insurance policy and went on a spending spree where she threw lavish parties, and even got herself breast implants.
Last week, Sommer, 33, was convicted of killing her husband for his insurance money.
If it wasn't for the discovery of the poison, Sommer may have gotten away with it based on the convincing act she put on for those around her.
An autopsy more than a year later found traces of arsenic, an ingredient of rat poison, in Mr Sommer's liver that were over 1,000 times above normal.
After a two-year probe, Sommer was arrested in 2005.
Sommer, who tattooed the dates of her husband's birth and death on her upper arm, had testified tearfully about how she hugged him when he died, removed his ring and slipped it on her thumb.
But prosecutor Laura Gunn told the court that Sommer made four inquiries about money in the first five hours after her husband's death, and within weeks had paid US$5,400 for breast implants.
The mother of four also had a string of sexual relationships, hosted loud parties at her house and participated in a wet T-shirt contest in Tijuana, where she flashed her new breasts in front of a crowd.
'She partied like a rock star,' said Ms Gunn.
CUSHY LIFESTYLE
Ms Gunn said that Sommer resorted to killing her husband because she wanted a more luxurious lifestyle than she could afford on his US$1,700 monthly salary, and she saw his military life insurance policy as a way to 'set herself free.'
But her lawyer Robert Udell said she got breast implants to make herself feel better.
The jury apparently found that explanation hard to swallow.
It convicted Sommer of first-degree murder, and also found her guilty of separate charges of murder by poisoning and murder for financial gain.
Sommer, who is now engaged to a former Marine she met two months after her husband's death, faces life in prison without parole. She will be sentenced in March. - Wire agencies.
Source
SHE KILLS HUBBY TO PAY FOR BOOB JOB 
