A panicked Marissa DeVault called 911 one night in January 2009 to report an assault on her husband, Dale Harrell. A complicated investigation then took place, involving allegations of abuse, financial motivation and confessions from multiple people. Marissa’s case is explored in depth in the second half of Investigation Discovery’s Deadly Sins: No Forgiveness: A Love Triangle Tangle, which explores how authorities finally managed to convict her. Let’s investigate what happened, shall we?
Marissa DeVault: Who is she?
Marissa DeVault was born and raised in Arizona, and the show portrays her childhood as far from ideal. At that time she was sexually abused by her stepfather. Marissa began working as a stripper after high school, but soon lost her job. She later met and married Dale Harrell. At the time of the incident, the couple lived in Gilbert, Arizona and they had three children together. At approximately 2:45 a.m. on January 14, 2009, Marissa called 911 to report that Dale had been assaulted.
At first, Marissa insisted that Dale choke her until she passed out. She added that when she woke up she was underneath Dale and witnessed her roommate Stanley Cook Jr hitting Dale on the head with a hammer. Stanley originally admitted to the assault, but later claimed he suffered from memory loss as a result of a motorcycle accident in 1998. At the age of 34, Dale died a few weeks after the incident.
Police didn’t take seriously Marissa’s claim that Stanley attacked Dale. According to the official study, Dale was alone in bed and lying on his left side when he was attacked, and Marissa could not have been underneath him. This was supported by the bloodstains found at the site. She eventually admitted hitting her husband with a hammer, saying it was because she had been physically and sexually abused for years.
Detectives later found out about Allen Flores, whom Marissa met online through a Sugar Daddies website. She had borrowed more than $300,000 from him at the time and had to pay it back. Even Allen had contributed to Stanley’s confession letter. He later issued a statement in support of the prosecution, saying Marissa discussed killing Dale or having him killed. According to another of Marissa’s ex-boyfriends, she asked him to “take care of” her spouse, but he refused.
Where is Marissa DeVault today?
In the end, prosecutors concluded that Marissa DeVault murdered Dale to get the insurance money. The jury ultimately refused to believe Marissa’s claim that she killed Dale in self-defense due to witness testimony, gory evidence, and her conflicting comments. Despite claims from friends and family that Dale never abused Marissa, her girls said their father frequently hit their mother. Marissa was convicted of first-degree murder in April 2014.
Marissa, then 36, received a life sentence without the possibility of parole that same month. Before receiving her sentence, she expressed her regret, saying, “I can’t do more than say I’m sorry. I can’t hit a back button, I can’t bring it back, I can’t fix everything that was wrong, and I wouldn’t even know where to go back if I had that button. I wish I could undo what happened because I sincerely regret it. According to prison records, she is still being held at the Arizona State Prison Complex – Perryville in Goodyear, Maricopa County.