BROCKTON, Mass. (Court TV) —A Massachusetts woman could spend the rest of her life in prison after she was sentenced for murdering her firefighter husband.
(L) Christine Ricci appears in court July 22, 2024. (Court TV), (R) Michael Ricci (Boston Fire Rescue Co. 2)
Christine Ricci was convicted of second-degree murder as well as assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in the Jan. 2021 death of Michael Ricci, 51.
At sentencing, the judge sentenced Ricci to no less than six years for the assault and battery with a dangerous weapon charge and life in prison with the possibility of parole in 20 years for second-degree murder.
Testimony at trial from first responders revealed Michael had been stabbed in the heart and on the back of his left shoulder.
The couple “had a verbal altercation prior to the incident,” according to prosecutors. In court, prosecutors also said mental health issues and Michael’s previous affair drove Christine to kill him.
In court, Christine’s attorney, Joshua Wood, said, “There were mental health issues on both sides.”
The jury deliberated for approximately three hours over two days before delivering the guilty verdict.
Michael was an Army veteran and had been a firefighter for 23 years with the Boston Fire Department when he died, according to his obituary. The couple had three children.
DAILY TRIAL UPDATES
DAY 7 – 8/22/24
- A judge sentenced Christine Ricci to a maximum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole in 20 years for the second-degree murder of her husband, Michael Ricci.
- WATCH: Wife Stabs Husband Murder Trial: Victim Impact Statements
DAY 6 – 8/1/24
- Joshua Wood closed for the defense and conceded that his client was devastated by the affair. He argued Michael Ricci’s death was an accident, and that it occurred while Christine was attempting to use the knife to hurt herself. Her attempt at self-harm sparked a struggle between the couple the two stumbled on a step leading from the kitchen to the dining room and Michael fell bearing his full weight on the knife causing the fatal wound to his chest.
- Wood suggested that the government’s case did not disprove that his death was accidental, and that prosecutors failed to prove that Christine intended to kill her husband. He urged jurors to find his client not guilty.
- WATCH: Wife Stabs Husband Murder Trial: Defense Closing Argument
- Jeremy Beth Kusmin closed for the Commonwealth arguing that Christine Ricci ended her pain, jealousy and anger by killing the man that caused it – her husband Michael Ricci.
- Kusmin argued that Christine was consumed with jealousy over Michael’s affair with another woman and recalled how she texted and confronted Janeen Bouchard at her home even after Michael ended their brief relationship. Kusmin argued that despite Michael’s efforts to salvage his family, Christine was obsessed and harangued him daily for details, and when he didn’t answer her questions, she became violent and aggressive.
- Kusmin told jurors that her incessant arguing alienated her children and testimony of Michael’s injuries- bruises & scratches on his face in the months before his death suggested he was being abused by Christine. She urged jurors to find Christine guilty.
- WATCH: Wife Stabs Husband Murder Trial: Prosecution Closing Argument
- Defendant Christine Ricci elected not to testify in her own defense and her team rested without calling a single witness.
- WATCH: Wife Stabs Husband Murder Trial: Jury Begin Deliberations
DAY 5 – 7/31/24
- Jurors heard from the defendant and victim’s son, Michael Ricci Jr., who testified that his mother brought up the affair every other day, if not every day – causing such strife it eventually drove him out of the house in June of 2019.
- Ricci Jr. was expected to testify about a second incident in which his mother attempted self-harm with a knife, but the judge ordered cameras off just before his direct examination over concern that the TV camera was picking up legal strategy at the prosecution table.
- Cameras were turned back on during his cross-examination, and our viewers learned that in June of 2019, she picked up a knife from a block, and he had to wrap his arms around her to stop her from harming herself or his father.
- Ricci Jr. said he stayed in touch with his sister after he moved out and received a phone call from her, in which she told him, ‘They’re fighting again,’ and that she wanted to get out of the house. He said that he visited his father at the firehouse about a week or so before his death and observed his father looked haggard and appeared to have an old bruise under his eye.
- Ricci Jr. admitted he was resentful of his mother, but not just because she obsessed over the affair, he said she had become increasingly hostile and violent with other members of the family.
- WATCH: Michael Ricci Jr., Son of Defendant and Victim, on Cross-Examination
- The Medical Examiner, Dr. Maria Del Mar Capo-Martinez, testified Michael Ricci suffered a penetrating stab wound to his chest that cut through skin, tissue, muscle, and cartilage, pierced his heart and lung, causing nearly half of his total blood volume to pool around his heart and lung and chest cavity.
- She testified that Ricci also suffered a stab wound to his upper back, an abrasion on his lower back and cuts to his fingers. She opined that the cause of death was sharp force injuries to his torso. The wound to his chest would have caused pain and made it difficult to breathe before he lost consciousness.
- On cross-examination, the doctor agreed with the defense’s suggestion that the penetrating stab wound could have been caused by falling and bearing his total weight on a knife.
- Commonwealth rests its case-in-chief against Christine Ricci.
DAY 4 – 7/30/24
- Janeen Bouchard, Michael Ricci’s mistress, testified that their six-week affair occurred in 2018.
- Bouchard testified that at the time of the affair, she thought Christine and Michael were separated.
- About a month after Michael abruptly ended the affair, she received a text message from Christine telling her to stay away from Michael.
- Bouchard claimed Christine showed up at her house on two separate occasions, and in Jan. 2020, she called police and Christine left.
- WATCH: Victim’s Mistress Describes Confrontation with Christine Ricci
- Katrina Freeman, the ex-girlfriend of Angel Ricci, testified about what she observed while living in the Ricci household.
- Freeman testified that after Christine discovered the affair, arguments were a daily occurrence for almost two years.
- At the end of 2018, Michael and Christine had an argument and Christine had to go to the hospital to treat her hand because it was injured from punching Michael in the face.
- On Mother’s Day 2020, there was an argument in the house. Freeman testified she saw Christine on the kitchen floor with a knife trying to cut herself. Michael and Angel were around her trying to stop her. Freeman moved out after that incident.
- On cross-examination, Freeman testified that even though she said she saw Christine stay in her room a lot, Christine was also teaching virtual Zumba classes because of COVID and taking online classes.
- Michael Ricci Jr. testified that in the fall of 2018, the house became silent and tense, then hostile and loud. The day he was told his father was an alcoholic, he found out his dad had an affair.
- Moved out in June 2019
- WATCH: Wife Stabs Husband Murder Trial: Day 4 Recap
DAY 3 – 7/29/24
- Two of Michael Ricci’s friends testified that they observed bruises and injuries to his face that were prominent enough that they asked him about it.
- Michael’s childhood friend, Mark MacDonald, said the two worked on sprinkler systems during Michael’s days off from the fire department. He said he observed a marked change in Michael’s behavior about six months before Michael quit the sprinkler business. He testified that around the fall of 2019, Michael came in with scratches, a fat lip and a bloody nose.
- MacDonald recalled a visit from Michael and Christine to his office and that when they were leaving, Christine’s behavior changed from pleasant to hostile, with her yelling so loud he feared it would disrupt businesses around the office.
- MacDonald testified about receiving a phone call from Christine around Christmas in which she was angry and upset about Jeanine Bouchard, the woman with whom her husband had an affair.
- MacDonald said she appeared to be driving and looking at names on mailboxes and becoming increasingly angry, so much so that he thought he might have to call the police.
- Michael Dillon, the victim’s coworker, testified that he and Michael saw each other every day and he observed Michael come to work with two black eyes. As recently as a week before his death, Dillon said that Michael showed up with scratches on his neck.
- WATCH: Wife Stabs Husband Murder Trial: Was Michael Ricci an Abuse Victim?
- A police officer who responded to the Ricci home testified that the defendant told him that she took a knife to defend herself because her husband lunged and fell on her.
- A detective with the Massachusetts State Police testified that he went to the hospital and observed stab wounds to the victim’s chest and upper back around the shoulder area. There was a less serious injury to his lower back.
- DNA analysts from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab testified that Michael’s DNA was found on knives recovered from the table and floor of the dining room. Male DNA from the front of Christine’s t-shirt was also consistent with Michael’s DNA.
DAY 2 – 7/26/24
- Jurors heard from Chris Martin, a patrolman who described Christine Ricci, as being frantic when he arrived on the scene. He said she was hyperventilating and yelling. Michael Ricci was on the floor lying face up on his back. He observed a five-inch steak knife by his feet. Seeing no obvious injuries to the victim – he assumed he had suffered a medically-related event, and first responders began performing chest compressions.
- WATCH: Officer: Christine Ricci Said She Thought Michael Was ‘Manic’
- Martin asked Christine Ricci what happened, she said that they had an argument and that he had a manic episode, prompting her to grab a knife. After paramedics moved Michael into the ambulance, they returned to inform him that they had discovered a penetrating stab wound to his chest.
- Martin questioned Christine again, the second time she explained in more detail that an argument had started between them, and believing that her husband was manic, she picked up a steak knife and claimed he lunged at her.
- Martin testified that had he known of the stabbing, he would have treated Christine differently and placed her in handcuffs – though that portion of his testimony was struck after a defense objection.
- Crime scene investigator Trooper Thomas Loughran photographed and filmed the residence he seized two knives, one from the floor another from the dining room table. He tested them but was not able to recover any fingerprints of value and sent them off for forensic testing.
- DNA analysts from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab developed profiles for comparison from the victim’s DNA. Another analyst who did the comparisons is expected to testify on Monday. The Commonwealth in its opening said Michael Ricci’s DNA was found on two knives.
DAY 1 – 7/25/24
- Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham opened for the Commonwealth telling jurors that defendant Christine Ricci never got over her husband’s extra-marital affair and likened their deteriorating relationship to a pot of boiling water that on January 28, 2021 – boiled over, and during one of their frequent arguments stabbed her husband to death with a kitchen knife.
- Defense attorney Joshua Wood in his opening told jurors that Christine Ricci never intended to kill her husband, and that their confrontation occurred within a 15-minute period during which she could not recall everything that happened because she was hysterical, though in one statement she told police her husband lunged at her and attacked her.
- WATCH: Wife Stabs Husband Murder Trial: Opening Statements
- The couple’s 20-year-old daughter Sophiya Ricci testified her parents’ relationship was fraught with arguments after her father divulged his affair to her and her brothers. On the afternoon of January 28, 2021, she was in her bedroom when she heard the two yelling, then her mother calling her and telling her to call 91l. She found her father on the floor, her mother beside him.
- Prosecutors played the 911 call, prompting Sophiya to weep. During her conversation with the 911 operator, her mother could be heard crying and yelling in the background. Sophiya testified that her mom suffered from panic attacks, and she had to calm her down by fetching her one of her prescription pills that she kept in her room.
- Sophiya who was the only other person in the house at the time of the fatal confrontation, testified that she did not observe any injuries on her mother or her father when she came down from her room. She told the jury that in the weeks leading up to her father’s death her parents fought about his drinking and his extra-marital affair.
- On cross-examination Sophiya agreed that her father was an admitted alcoholic, who drank every day and experienced lapses in memory that was often the subject of her parents’ arguments. He stopped drinking after the affair and attended AA meetings.
- Prosecutors also called Angel Ricci, the defendant’s eldest son to the witness stand. Angel, 27, said he was adopted by Michael Ricci Sr., and has only known him as his father. He testified his parents had a good relationship up until his mother learned that his father cheated on her. His room was in the basement, and he would often hear them arguing. He said after learning of the affair, his mother became more isolated and angrier, causing his father to pick up the slack when it came to household duties like cleaning and cooking.
- Angel testified that he walked in on one of his parents’ arguments. He observed things were broken in the room and described his mother as being so hysterical she went into the kitchen grabbed a knife and attempted to stab herself in the stomach area.
- Angel said he and his father worked together to stop his mother from harming herself.
- On cross examination – Angel agreed his father was an alcoholic and drank heavily.
- Also, on cross Angel agreed that he would expect his father’s DNA to be on the kitchen knives because he used them.
