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An Ohio woman has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for a shocking crime: injecting her husband with a potent poison that killed him in mere minutes during a child custody exchange in 2022.
Amanda Hovanec, 37, pleaded guilty to several charges, including the distribution of a controlled substance that led to her husband Timothy’s death. The couple shared three children. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio, Hovanec admitted to injecting Timothy with M-99, also known as Etorphine, a controlled substance approximately 1,000 times more powerful than morphine.
The crime occurred on April 24, 2022, when Timothy arrived to drop off their daughters at Hovanec’s home in Wapakoneta, Ohio. The incident was recorded on dash camera video obtained from Timothy’s abandoned car in Dayton, Ohio, after he failed to check out of his hotel and was reported missing.
In the footage, Hovanec and her mother, Anita Green, were seen waiting outside the home. Hovanec approached Timothy’s car and told their children, “I have a surprise for you inside,” before the kids entered the home with Green.
Seconds later, Timothy’s voice can be heard on the dashcam footage, exclaiming, “What the heck are you doing? Did you just assault me?” and then pleading, “Get away from me… Get off of me,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The recording captured Hovanec pulling on her husband’s shirt as he attempted to use his cellphone, eventually knocking it out of his hand.
“She then pulled on his back to bring him to the ground, holding him around the neck until his body went limp and he became unresponsive, lying on the driveway,” the statement explains. After the fatal act, Hovanec stood up, picked up her husband’s cellphone, removed his smartwatch, and turned off his vehicle’s engine, which was the moment the dash camera stopped recording.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Hovanec confessed to injecting her husband— a U.S. Department of State worker— with M-99, or Etorphine, a controlled substance about 1,000 times more potent than morphine, typically used in veterinary medicine. Disturbingly, she later admitted to disposing of Timothy’s car and burying his body in a wooded area near her home.
Authorities noted that the killing was rooted in a lengthy custody dispute over the couple’s children. Hovanec filed for divorce in 2020, returning to the U.S. after living in South Africa for two years due to her husband’s job. During her time in South Africa, she engaged in a relationship with Anthony Theodorou, a South African citizen.
“In December 2021, she began denying her husband visitation with their children, despite a court order mandating it,” authorities stated. After Timothy filed multiple contempt motions against Hovanec for this refusal, a judge ordered that the children be allowed visitation with their father in April 2022.
Moreover, the judge ruled that Timothy would be the “residential parent and legal custodian” of their children for two months starting in May. However, that agreement had not yet taken effect at the time of Timothy’s murder.
Court records referenced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office indicate that Hovanec had contemplated killing her husband for at least a year prior to the crime and even considered hiring a hitman before ultimately deciding to inject him with M-99.
Authorities revealed that Hovanec obtained the substance from Theodorou, who was in Ohio at the time of the murder and assisted her in burying her husband’s body.
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