An Act Of Murder

Fatal Blaze? "The Bride Who Cried." That was the title of the dinner-theater murder mystery presented at Maryland's luxurious Harbourtowne resort on Valentine's Day weekend, 1998. But no tears were being shed by Kimberly Hricko at 3 a.m. when she reported a fire in the room she shared with her husband, Stephen. Rescuers found him dead, badly burned around the upper body. It seemed that he'd fallen asleep while smoking a cigar, sparking off an inferno.Staged MurderBut Kimberly's efforts to play the part of an innocent widow quickly began to unravel. Sleuths learned that she had been having an affair with a man ten years her junior. She also stood to inherit $400,000 on her husband's death—and had tried to bribe a coworker to kill Stephen for $50,000. In the courtroom, prosecutors argued that Kimberly injected her sleeping spouse with a lethal dose of muscle relaxant and set the fire to cover her tracks. For a cold-blooded killer who acted without...