June 30, 2020
Former California attorney, Lonnie Loren Kocontes, 62 was convicted Monday for murdering then-52-year-old Micki Kanesaki, his ex-wife, in order to inherit $1 million, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Back on May 25, 2006, Kocontes strangled Kanesaki during a cruise ship vacation and tossed her body overboard. Kanesaki’s body was recovered by a research vessel on May 28, 2006, in the Mediterranean Sea near Italy, according to NBC 4.
Kocontes “Almost got away with the perfect crime. But he made a mistake. Despite all of his painstaking planning to pick the perfect ship, the perfect room and the perfect time to commit a murder, the fact that he strangled her before throwing her overboard gave us the very evidence to convict him of murder,” stated the Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer.
An autopsy performed on Kanesaki’s body eventually showed her lungs “were completely free of water” and she suffered “severe hemorrhaging around her neck.” Her injuries were consistent with strangulation.
Kocontes and Kanesaki divorced in 2002 after several years of marriage, but they still lived together while they were working on splitting each other’s assets. During this time, Kocontes married another Asian woman named Amy Nguyen and moved in with her in 2005.
Once moving in with his new wife, Kocontes tried to sell the home he co-owned with his ex-wife, Micki Kanesaki. She refused to sell and Kocontes ended up moving back in with Kanesaki. That’s when he allegedly hatched a plan to murder her. He kicked things off by naming himself as Kanesaki’s executor when he re-wrote her will leading up to the cruise trip around Europe.
The “All My Children” drama isn’t over yet. Kocontes is also awaiting trial for trying to pay his fellow prison inmates to murder Amy Nguyen in an attempt to stop her from testifying in his trial, now also, his new ex-wife. Kocontes faces life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering Kanesaki, He is to be sentenced September 18.
Feature Image via New York Post