A woman who told police in 1961 that her husband was shot to death after the couple had been abducted by two men at gunpoint has been blamed for his death.
Miami-Dade County police on Tuesday said that Frances Dimare – who died in 2006 – was the person responsible for her husband Joseph’s death on March 24, 1961, NBC News reported.
“Investigators met with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office who all agree that there is no credible evidence to support that anyone other than Frances Dimare is the person responsible for the killing of Joseph Dimare,” police said in a statement to media outlets.
It’s been more than six decades since Joseph died, and police said the case had been difficult to solve because Frances’ motive wasn’t clear, she provided inconsistent statements to police, and her account of her husband’s death was uncorroborated. Frances had been considered a suspect in her husband’s death, however, but she was never charged. Police also believe she may have had accomplices, and couldn’t be sure who actually pulled the trigger, but provided no additional details about whether there were any other suspects.
In 1961, Frances told police that she and her husband had been driving to dinner when two armed men forced their way into the car, pointing a gun at her head and telling her to drive to an empty lot, NBC reported. She claimed the men hit her with the gun, which caused her to lose consciousness. When she woke up, she said, her husband had been moved to the driver’s seat and had been shot to death.
Frances said she then ran from the car barefoot to call authorities, but there was no evidence that her feet had been damaged by running on a gravel road. Police found her shoes placed neatly against the car, the police statement said.
Police determined that Joseph had been shot with his own gun in his garage before the couple had even left for dinner. The gunshots came from the driver’s seat, and a trail of blood led from the couple’s home to the empty lot, police said in their statement.
As for motive, the couple had marital issues and were heading for divorce, police said. Joseph had even changed his will to say that Frances had to live with him in order to be considered a beneficiary should he die. This caused Frances, who was actually living in Ohio, to return to Florida.
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Joseph’s son, Richard, has been trying to close his father’s case for most of his life, and told NBC Miami that his father’s death “was all about money.” Richard, who is Joseph’s son from a previous marriage, said he was skeptical of Frances since the beginning.
“There were a lot of problems, my stepmother left the house three times,” Richard told the outlet, adding that he had told police in 1961 that he suspected Frances was the shooter.
“I’m relieved on one side, but the pain and suffering my family suffered, I don’t know that’s ever going to go away,” Richard said of police finally closing the case.
As for why it took so long to determine Frances was responsible, Miami-Dade Police Det. Jonathan Grossman said in the statement that no one working the case today was around in 1961.
“What we can tell you is that now, going through the case file, looking at it through our set of eyes and the team that we have, we have been able to come to the conclusion that she is the person responsible,” he said.
