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A North Dakota woman was arrested and charged for allegedly killing her boyfriend last month by poisoning him. The suspect, 47-year-old Ina Thea Kenoyer, is believed to have murdered 51-year-old Steven Edward Riley, Jr. of Minot (a city in North Dakota about 50 miles south of the Canadian border) due to financial reasons. Riley died on Sept. 5 at a hospital in Bismarck after being transferred there from a local hospital in Minot. Results of a subsequent autopsy determined that Riley’s official cause of death was poisoning.
The Minot Police Department said in a news release shared to its Facebook page that Kenoyer was taken into custody Monday and charged with class AA felony murder in the death of Riley, who was in a relationship with Kenoyer, and who is also from Minot. In North Dakota, a class AA felony could carry a maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole if there is a conviction. An investigation into Kenoyer and the circumstances leading up to Riley’s death is still ongoing.
Police believe that Kenoyer “had financial motives to murder Riley,” they said. Kenoyer is being held at the Ward County Jail in Minot. Capt. Dale Plessas, the investigations commander at the Minot Police Department, in a statement: “This case was extremely complex. Thank you to everyone who provided us with information that helped our investigators piece this together.”
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