Michigan Woman Again Sentenced to Life in Prison for 2007 Murder

In a gruesome and very controversial case that has dragged on for almost two decades, Linda Stermer, the Michigan woman already acquitted on appeal, has been sentenced to life without parole for the third time for killing her husband, Todd Stermer. The sentence was imposed on Monday by Van Buren County Judge Kathleen Brickley, who characterized the crime as unusually brutal and emotionally destructive.

The case first appeared in the public light back in 2007 when Todd Stermer was brutally murdered. Prosecutors allege Linda soaked her husband in gasoline and set him on fire, following an argument with him over her infidelity. The most reviled charge that shocked the community further was that she ran his burning body over with a van as he tried to flee the flames. The violence of the crime, combined with the fact that it was committed in private, gained national attention and serious questions of motive, justice, and the nature of intimate partner violence.

Judge Brickley didn’t have to struggle with containing her revulsion at the crime when she was sentencing Stermer. “Murder is in and of itself an evil thing,” she declared, “but the one that you have done is more bad than most. I cannot comprehend the pain he endured during his last moments of life.”

Stermer, who was 60 years old, spent years insisting that she was not guilty. She again took this stance in court, stating, “While I stand before you, innocent and wrongfully convicted, I’m prepared for the battle ahead.” Although again insisting on her innocence, a second jury convicted her of first-degree murder. The second conviction effectively ends a long and complex legal journey, although Stermer’s attorneys may still appeal.

Stermer was first convicted in 2010, three years after Todd’s death. She had been sentenced to life at the time as well. In 2020, a federal appeals court overturned the conviction due to her right to a fair trial being breached. The court found that her defense lawyer had not sufficiently challenged the prosecution’s basic premise: that she had knowingly set the fire that killed Todd.

This legal lifeline gave Stermer a chance for liberty and a retrial. Outside of jail, she attempted to pick up where she left off in life, but the legal woes did not desert her. Although her attorneys again presented the argument in the second trial that Todd had been killed accidentally that he was possibly being overcome by burning candle fire and an oil lamp prosecutors categorically rejected that hypothesis.

Prosecutors offered a damning sequence of events: an unhappy marriage, a discovery of infidelity, and a violent, abrupt end. They offered an act of deliberate anger, stating Linda Stermer waited until her husband was engrossed, and then attacked with premeditated intent. The facts, most notably the extent of Todd’s injuries and Linda’s subsequent behavior, persuaded a second jury that this was not an accident, but murder.

One of the most powerful counterarguments against the case has been Stermer’s own behavior following the fire. Prosecutors claimed she had no guilt and no shock, and acted as if she was more culpable than bereaved. Running over her already aflame husband in a van, accidentally or otherwise, was believed to be part of a concerted effort to ensure that he was dead.

The case was not uncontested. One of the judges in the federal court filed a dissent from ordering Stermer a new trial on appeal, arguing that the case for intentional murder was overwhelming. “All that was missing,” wrote Judge Jeffrey Sutton at the time, “was a film of the mariticide.” Those were the feelings of many who have followed the case with dismay: that the defense theory of ghastly accident was far-fetched on the facts.

In both trials, the emotional weight of the case has been immense, especially on the family members of Todd and Linda. The conditions in which Todd’s final minutes were spent being burned, trying to escape, and then being killed as well by being run over are ghastly. The ultimate determination of the court helped in bringing some measure of closure and justice to what was surely a ghastly experience.

While there is no longer a legal remedy, Linda Stermer’s prospects of reversing a second conviction are slim. The state now has two convictions of guilt on essentially the same facts, and public opinion appears firmly in opposition to her. Her words at sentencing, however, made it clear that she is far from ready to throw in the towel.

For the time being, the courtroom melodrama is complete with the same sentence that was handed down over a decade ago: life imprisonment, no chance of parole. Not only does the verdict send the message of the court of the deprecation of the crime, but it also brings out the difficulty of getting justice in legally complicated and emotionally charged domestic violence cases.

The Stermer case is a harsh reminder of how love and trust are translated into violence and betrayal to leave years of agony that echo for years. Even though the process of law has pronounced in the affirmative, to the involved families, real closure could possibly still be elusive to them.