By Liam McInerney

Copyright dailyrecord

In the small hours of January 14, 2009, a desperate phone call from a suburban residence was made to the police . Marissa Devault was on the other end, pleading for “help” before abruptly cutting off. In a subsequent call, Devault queried “are they coming” and then informed the operator: “He was strangling me.” This marked the first time the mother-of-three, residing in a Phoenix suburb in Arizona, US , recalled the terrifying events that transpired in her home, although her story would shift repeatedly. When emergency services reached the scene, they found Devault in a state of hysteria with her head drenched in blood. Her husband, Dale Harrell, lay naked on the bedroom floor, miraculously alive despite a gaping hole in his skull. The room was splattered with blood across the bed linen, walls, and floor as paramedics fought to save him on route to the hospital. Devault told authorities that Dale had assaulted her in her sleep and strangled her until she passed out. Upon regaining consciousness, she claimed to have witnessed Stanley Cook Jr, a lodger in their house, bludgeoning Dale with a claw hammer. She credited Stanley with saving her life, and he initially admitted to the police that he had hit Dale with the hammer. However, he soon claimed to suffer from short-term memory loss due to a traumatic brain injury sustained in a motorcycle crash in 1998, leaving him with no recollection of the incident. Despite their initial account, the crime scene quickly indicated to investigators that it was likely fabricated. The blood stains suggested that Dale, who had multiple skull fractures, was alone in the bed during the assault and Devault couldn’t have been beneath him. Court later saw photos of Devault’s immaculately manicured nails, which showed little sign of any struggle. In a subsequent interview, while Dale was critically ill, Devault changed her story. She claimed she was the one who used the claw hammer to strike him multiple times as he slept, before Stanley stepped in and took the weapon from her. As for her motive, she alleged that her husband had sexually assaulted her, which sent her into a fury. Dale passed away nearly a month after the hammer attack, when his family made the heart-wrenching decision to switch off his life support. This chilling case was recently recounted by a YouTuber named Adrian on his Coffeehouse Crime channel. Providing some background, he explained how Dale and Devault knew each other from high school. After finishing education, Devault worked in customer service roles before having a child with an absent father. This led her to work as a dancer at a gentleman’s club. On the other hand, Dale had studied mechanical engineering and began a relationship with Devault in his early 20s, treating her daughter as if she were his own. Due to his steady earnings, Devault was able to remain a stay-at-home mum, and the couple eventually had two daughters together after tying the knot. Eventually, supporting a household of five on a single income became difficult, so they took in a lodger, Stanley, to help with their financial pressures. However, despite seeming like any other ordinary family struggling to make ends meet, Dale ended up being beaten to death while he slept, and it wasn’t long before his wife’s hidden life was exposed. On February 27, 2009, Devault was charged with one count of first-degree murder with premeditation. Prosecutors sought the death penalty and their key witness was Allen Flores, a man who had been conducting a clandestine affair with Marrisa, who was 20 years his junior. Throughout their two-year relationship, unknown to Dale, Devault had borrowed $300,000 from Allen. In court, he gave evidence that Devault planned to either pay someone to murder her husband, or carry out the killing herself before telling police he had attempted to rape her. Devault’s barristers challenged Allen’s reliability given he was granted immunity on child pornography charges in exchange for his testimony. The disturbing material was discovered on his computer during a house search while the murder investigation was ongoing. Her daughter, meanwhile, who was 13 at the time of the killing, gave evidence that family life was “tumultuous”. She also alleged that Dale was abusive towards her mother at times, a claim that friends and neighbours had reportedly never witnessed. Prosecutor Michelle Arino contended that Devault murdered her husband to extricate herself from financial difficulties, stating: “The defendant likes money, and she likes easy money.” He suggested that Devault thought she could secure an insurance payout and then settle the debts she owed to Allen. Devault, on the other hand, claimed that she killed her husband in self-defence. The mother was handed a life sentence after being convicted of first-degree premeditated murder in April 2014 for bludgeoning Dale to death with a hammer. She avoided the death penalty following three days of jury deliberation. At the sentencing, Devault wept and expressed remorse for the killing and the suffering it caused to Dale’s family and friends.