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Marriage

Anne Marie and Bill Stout married in the mid-1980s. Anne Marie came into the marriage with a child from a previous relationship.

She and Bill went on to have several kids together. Their oldest child committed suicide in 2000. Their relationship deteriorated as Bill blamed Anne for his death.

In 2004, Bill took out a half-million-dollar life insurance policy on himself. In March 2005, he had a brief affair with an old girlfriend, which Anne learned about two months later. The relationship with Ann continued to go downhill after that.

Ann created an email account pretending to be the woman Bill had an affair with. She sent embarrassing emails to their families and friends to torment Bill.

She let Bill believe she forgave him, but in reality, she was still pissed over two years later.

Crime

She started putting an evil plan in action on May 31, 2007, when she stole Bill’s Beretta 9mm pistol and two magazines. He reported them missing, unaware that his wife had taken them.

On June 10th, 2007, she made Bill dinner and had sex with him. Once he fell asleep, she put a bullet in his head.

The next day at 8 am, she went shopping with her son, and when they returned home at 4:30 pm, she pretended to find the body and called 911.

As detectives investigated, all the evidence pointed to Anne. When she was questioned, she denied involvement, but her lies didn’t work, and she was arrested four days after the murder.

Legal Proceedings

By the time she went to trial in 2008, prosecutors had evidence she searched for “how to kill someone” and “how to poison someone and get away with it.” They also had a note she wrote to herself about how to use a handgun. The presented bloody gloves they had found in her vehicle and a bloody sock they found in a hamper.

Prosecutors needed the jury to know it was a well-thought-out, premeditated act.

On June 19th, 2008, after 60 witnesses and three weeks of testimony, she was convicted of murder.

She returned to court for sentencing on September 26th, 2008. When she spoke, she said that her husband was her best friend. She asked the judge to “Allow our family the seeds of hope” and said she wanted to return to her family as soon as possible.

Her son, mother, and brother asked the judge to be lenient and give her an opportunity at parole one day.

Their requests for leniency fell on deaf ears; the judge sentenced Anne to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

She is serving her sentence at the Montana Women’s Prison in Billings.