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Linda Pedroza seemed like the perfect child; she would help her mother, Isabella Pedroza, with cooking, cleaning, and yard work. However, when Linda grew older, she began to rebel. By middle school, she was doing drugs, running away, and bringing boys home.

Things were so bad that her mother moved her from a public school to a private school, then from that private school to homeschool. Her mother was doing everything she could to get her daughter off the path she was on.

In 2000, 17-year-old Linda Pedroza started dating a 23-year-old man named Antoine Wright. Isabella liked him at first until she caught him naked with her daughter. From that point forward, she came to hate Antoine and disapprove of their relationship.

Linda and Antoine were obsessed with each other and felt like getting rid of Isabella was the only way they could be together. They considered poisoning and shooting her before deciding strangulation was their best option.

On June 23, 2000, Isabella came home from work and was attacked by Antoine. He hit her in the head with a frying pan, then strangled her to death with an extension cord as Linda stood by.

They placed her body in a bathtub full of muriatic acid to make the body more difficult to identify. They then took the body into the woods and dumped it. They left her car at the airport, and Linda reported her mother missing on June 27, telling police she left after they had argued.

With her mother out of the way, Linda and Antoine moved on with their lives, spending the $8,000 they had stolen from Isabella on cars, rims, parties, and tattoos. However, the fun times did not last long.
On July 15, 2000, 11 days after Isabella’s body was found, Linda and Antonine were arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Both were facing the death penalty.

Prosecutors offered Linda a plea deal to testify against Antoine. If she had agreed to the deal, she would have received 20 years in jail, but she rejected it because she did not want to turn on Antoine.

Antoine was not as loyal. In 2002, Antoine Wright was given a 20-year sentence in exchange for testifying against Linda.

Soon after Antoine’s plea deal was announced, Linda gave in and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder; she was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Antoine was released from prison in 2018.

Linda is projected to get out on September 8th, 2035.