When investigating a murder, police normally look for the person who had the most to gain, from revenge to wealth, from the victim’s death.
After Linda, a successful celebrity Realtor in New York City, was found murdered in her apartment, investigators found she had just as many enemies as she had loyal employees. However, no one had any real reason to have her killed. But then police found a major clue when they saw what Linda’s assistant did to her pants…
October 30, 2007
Just before 10:30 p.m. on October 30, 2007, Mandy Stein came home to her mother’s Upper East Side penthouse. She expected to find her mother, 62-year-old Linda Stein, awake in the living room, but what she found instead still haunts her to this day.
A Tragic Discovery
When Mandy stepped into the $3 million New York City apartment, she found her mother dead on the floor. The 62-year-old was laying face down in a pool of her own blood and her legs were twisted in an unnatural position. At first, Mandy couldn’t process what she was seeing…
The 911 Call
“I came home and my mom is in a puddle [of blood],” Mandy screamed to a 911 operator. “Oh my God. Please! Please! I need an ambulance! My mom! She’s dead, I think! I don’t know! Help me! Help me! Help me! Send somebody! Send somebody! Send somebody! Please. Please.”
A Force of Nature
Anyone would be shocked and horrified to discover their mother’s dead body, but for Mandy, it was especially blindsiding. In Mandy’s eyes, her mother, a multimillionaire who started out as a school teacher in the Bronx, was an invincible force of nature…
Agent to the Stars
Linda’s intelligence and her brutal honesty catapulted her from school teacher to being an agent for punk rock legends The Ramones, and later as a successful Realtor for celebrities like Madonna, Sting, Angelina Jolie, Sir Elton John, and Steven Spielberg.
The Diagnosis
In the weeks before her daughter found her dead in her own apartment, Linda had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. However, her 2 daughters and her close friends had no doubt she would beat the cancer the same way she had beat breast cancer in the 1990s…
A Haunting Memory
However, Linda’s life was unexpectedly cut short, which is why Mandy still couldn’t believe what she was seeing on the night of October 30. “I am haunted by the images of what I saw that night as well as what I felt – my mother’s body, hard as a rock and cold to the touch,” Mandy said.
The Cause of Death
According to the investigators, Linda died from several blows to the head with a ‘blunt instrument’. At Linda’s funeral on November 2, 2007, Mandy and her sister, Samantha, vowed to get justice for their mother and make sure her murderer pays for what they did…
Justice Will be Served
“I had to see what this bastard had done,” Samantha said in a statement during the funeral after watching the mortician for 3 hours trying to cover up the brutal wounds he mother sustained in the attack. “We stood there and we promised, ‘Justice will be served.’ We won’t stop until justice is served.”
The Search for the Suspect
Like the investigators from the NYPD, the sisters couldn’t figure out who would have any reason to kill the 62-year-old. At the time of the funeral, Mandy and Samantha still had no idea that their mother’s murderer was listening to their words that day…
The Investigtion
The police had immediately started an investigation into the murder the night Linda’s body was discovered and reported by her daughter. In just hours, investigators interviewed about 60 people who had been in or around the building that day, including a former boyfriend and Linda’s assistant, who was the last person to see her alive.
The Personal Assistant
At first, the police didn’t think Linda’s assistant, Natavia Lowery, fit the profile of a murderer. Like her boss, Lowery had come from humble beginnings. She grew up in Brooklyn and had fallen into the assistant position when a temp agency assigned her to the position, which was vacant because Linda had fired her last assistant…
The Tabloid Story
Lowery was one of the first personal assistants Linda ever liked, which is why no one suspected she had anything to do with the murder. But on November 7, Lowery agreed to meet investigators after a story about her was published in a tabloid, that revealed her questionable past and former friends claiming she was a pathological liar.
A Confession
While in an interview room, Lowery confessed to murdering Linda without a lawyer present. According to Lowery, she just snapped that afternoon after Linda started yelling at her, blowing smoke in her face, and waving a wooden yoga exercise bar at her…
The Murder
“So I snatched it from her,” Lowery said about the exercise stick. “So I took it and I like hit her with it.” According to Lowery, she hit her boss about 6 times and she fell to the ground after the first strike.”I didn’t see blood on anything. Her eyes were closed,” Lowery said.
Bad Intentions
“I just stood up. I was like in total shock. I was, like, ‘What?!’ I just stood there. I called her name so many times. I shook her so many times. My intention was not to hurt her not to kill her. It was like, ‘Leave me alone. LEAVE ME ALONE!’,” Lowery added…
Rescinding The Confession
Lowery later rescinded her confession, which was taken without her lawyer present, and claimed she was innocent. Some even doubted the legitimacy of the confession since police were never able to find the murder weapon and multiple aspects of her confession were wrong. Linda was hit about 12 times, and there was no marijuana in her system even though Lowery claimed she was smoking pot and blowing smoke in her face.
The Verdict
However, a jury took just 5 hours to deliberate before finding Lowery guilty of all charges. According to the jury, their decision was largely swayed by what the security cameras in the building caught Lowery doing the day Linda was murdered and by what Linda had caught Lowery doing the weeks before that day in October…
The Facts That Swayed The Jury
In the weeks before Linda’s death, she discovered her 28-year-old personal assistant had stolen about $30,000 from her. Instead of going to the police about the theft, she thought she could handle it herself when she confronted Lowery about it on October 30. Security cameras also caught Lowery walking out of the building in her pants that she had turned inside out to hide blood stains. She then withdrew $800 from an ATM using Linda’s debit card. “The pants were huge,” juror Kelly Newton said. “It cemented dots for us. It solidified the arguments.”
The Sentence
Lowery was found guilty of all murder and theft charges. In addition to being sentenced to 25 years to life for the murder plus 2-⅓ to 7 years for the theft, Justice Richard Carruthers ordered Lowery to pay back the money she stole. He also recommended she never be released for parole. “I’m just really grateful that my mom’s getting justice,” Mandy said. “Nothing will bring her back, but we are grateful for justice.”
Personal Assistant Sentenced To Life In Prison After Being Caught On Security Camera is an article from: LifeDaily
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