Pennsylvania man charged with wife's murder 8 years after her disappearance
Pennsylvania man charged with wife's murder 8 years after her disappearance
A Pennsylvania man has been arrested on a murder charge in the death of his wife who went missing in 2017, authorities said.
Allen Gould, 60, of Malvern, was charged with first-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence and other related charges in the death of 43-year-old Anna Maciejewska, a Poland native and the mother of a young boy.
Prosecutors say Gould was "incredibly deceptive" about this wife's whereabouts and gave several false statements to law enforcement. While there is no physical evidence linking Gould to the killing, prosecutors say the totality of actions before and after his wife's disappearance are enough to land a conviction.
Maciejewska, whose body has never been found, was first reported missing by a coworker on April 11, 2017, according to the Chester County District Attorney's Office. The following day, Gould called police to report his wife missing, telling authorities the last time he saw her was the morning of April 10 when she rushed out of the house for a work meeting.
Law enforcement says they've poked holes in Gould's story
Through cellphone records, witness accounts and financial records, Pennsylvania State Police pieced together her normal routine and discovered that the last time anyone saw or heard Maciejewska was March 28, 2017 – two weeks before Gould contacted authorities, according to the Chester County District Attorney's Office.
Investigators also found Maciejewska's car a few miles from the family home and later determined it was never started on April 10 as Gould had claimed, prosecutors said.
Further, police found that a text message sent from Maciejewska's phone to her father on March 30 was written using Google Translate despite Maciejewska speaking fluent Polish.
Chester County District Attorney Chris de Barrena-Sarobe said at a news confernce that all the interviews over the course of eight years demonstrated that Maciejewska was a "devoted mother" who "loved her family."
"There's nothing to indicate that she would stop corresponding with her family, stop spending any amount of money to go visit them and essentially abandon her son," Barrena-Sarobe said. "It simply doesn't make any common sense."
Investigators discover preliminary divorce papers
Barrena-Sarobe said while Gould tried to establish that he and Maciejewska were in a loving marriage, law enforcement recovered documents and interviewed witnesses who suggest the two had "a difficult marriage." He said authorities discovered preliminary divorce papers found at their home.
When asked why the case took so long to bring forward, Barrena-Sarobe told reporters "we wanted to exhaust everything." He said investigators wanted to use the most up-to-date technology, some of which was not in existence when Maciejewska was reported missing.
"It's not just about prosecuting people because we have strong feelings that they did it," he said. "We have to prove our case beyond a reasonable doubt in accordance with the law. And before we do that in a case that is as expansive as this, we have to make sure that we've covered all of our bases."
Gould is being held without bail and has a preliminary hearing on May 27.
His defense attorney, Evan Kelly, did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment.
Speaking with ABC News, Kelly said Gould "has been living under the specter of this for eight years" and just wants to "clear his name in the court of law."
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