A jury in Orlando acquitted a woman of killing her ex-stepfather, who became her husband, finding she acted in self-defense after years of violence.
Daniel Redlick, 46, burst into tears Friday afternoon.
On Thursday, the jury began the hearing, and on Friday acquitted her of second-degree murder.
She was found guilty of falsifying evidence, but not of stabbing NBA executive Michael Radlick, 65, at their home in Winter Park.
One of the jurors said the state leaves too much room for reasonable doubt.
“If you have a history of abuse and so many other factors and you can’t say 100 percent because it’s someone’s life that is determined,” the jury said. WESH 2.
“We can do everything we can and the jury was pleased with the selection.”
Daniel Redlick is awaiting sentencing in the second-degree murder case on Friday
When the jury in Orlando ruled, Redlick burst into tears
The 46-year-old woman looked depressed and with great relief, shaking hands with her lawyer
Radlick, who met her husband when he met her mother, shone after the verdict was announced.
Michael Radlick, 65, was stabbed to death at his home in Winter Park on January 11, 2019.
The couple met in the late 1990s when he began dating her mother Kathleen Aquino.
Michael and Kathleen married in late 1999 to give her access to his health insurance policy after being diagnosed with breast cancer; she died later that year.
Before his death, Redlick, who was director of external relations and partner relations for the DeVos Sport Business Management program at the University of Central Florida, told witnesses that his wife was “crazy, but as long as I hide steak knives, I have to be good.”
Daniel claimed that Michael stabbed himself on January 11, 2019, when he found on her phone flirtatious text messages from another man. She later said he had a heart attack.
She then changed her story, insisting it was self-defense, admitting she stabbed him in the shoulder but saying he was strangling him at the time.
Daniel Redlick (left), 46, was the stepdaughter of Michael Redlick (right), 65, before he married her in the early 2000s
Michael married Daniel’s mother, Kathleen Aquina, in late 1999 to give her access to his health insurance policy after being diagnosed with breast cancer; she died in 1999
The couple’s home is in the suburbs of Winter Park, where a knife wound occurred in January 2019
Michael and Daniel met when Michael started dating Daniel’s mother, Kathleen Aquino, for three years. They eventually married after Kathleen died and had children of their own
The couple had been married for 17 years and had two children aged 11 and 15.
Images and videos from the investigation show the condition of the house after Redlick called 911 to report that her husband had been murdered – 11 hours after police reported it had happened.
They found that she was meanwhile in a dating app.
Police said they saw red streaks on the floor and splashes of blood on the walls of the kitchen, living room and master bedroom.
Prosecutors said there were signs that Redlick was trying to clean up the scene after officials found bloodied towels, a mop and a bucket.
A bloody knife was found on the floor along with two others in the sink.
An updated autopsy report states that Michael Redlick died from a stab wound to the torso that cut through the basilica vein.
The forensic expert told police it would take him only five to six minutes to bleed.
In an interview with Orlando Hospital detective Daniel Redlick declined to elaborate on the night of her husband’s death.
But she explained that they quarreled over a text sent to her by another man.
“He found me a text from another person,” she told Winter Park police in an interview with AdventHealth Orlando on January 12, 2019.
“We had some problems and last year he cheated on me and it was a big, long deal.
“And we finally came to life together again and maybe tried to go through it, but I don’t think it really happened, and I think it’s inevitable that we’ll probably break up again.”
Sean Wiggins, the attorney general, told the jury that the couple’s home after the murder was a “horror scene”.
Michael Radlick (right) died at his home after he and his wife quarreled over texts sent to her by another person
Redlick is seen in court on June 9 in Orlando
Redlick was found guilty of manipulating the crime scene due to the fact that she swept the floor. However, despite her attempts to clean up, police still found bloodstains on the floor.
Photographs published by the authorities show a knife on the kitchen floor of the house and blood splashed on the floor (circled).
In his opening remarks, he told them: “Evidence will show that from the very beginning, this accused did everything she could to avoid responsibility for her actions.”
However, Andrew Parnell, one of her public defenders, said in her closing remarks that the couple’s relationship was marked by the fact that Michael Redlick abused her.
He said Michael’s uncertainty about her age and the need to treat erectile dysfunction led to violence against Daniela: hitting, holding her, strangling her, looking her in the eye when attacked.
Parnell said she was trapped, crushed, strangled, thinking she would die in her kitchen at the hands of her own husband.
On Friday in the courtroom he was asked how Daniel was feeling.
On August 2, she will be convicted of forging evidence.
‘Her reaction? “I’m happy to be home again,” Parnell said. “Very glad I can go home.”
