Dead KKK leader’s wife in custody on suspicion of murder: Sheriff

Malissa Ancona is expected to be formally charged in her husband Frank’s murder

The wife of a KKK leader who was found dead of a gunshot wound this weekend in Missouri is being held on suspicion of first-degree murder and is expected to be formally charged before the end of the day.

A source inside the St. Francois County Sheriff’s office confirmed to Crime Online Monday that Malissa Ancona, the wife of Frank Ancona, was taken into custody on suspicion of murder and is currently on a 24-hour hold pending formal charges. The source indicated that murder charges were expected to be filed pending the application of a warrant. Mrs. Ancona, who lives in Leadwood, Missouri, was taken into custody on Sunday evening.

READ also: KKK leader found dead near river

Frank Ancona, who described himself as an “imperial wizard” of the Traditionalist Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was found dead on Saturday near Big River in Washington County, Missouri. His car was found in a remote wooded area in Washington County earlier in the week.

According to the Daily Journal Online, an autopsy conducted on Sunday determined that Ancona had died of a gunshot wound to the head. The Daily Journal Online also reported that Mrs. Ancona told police she expected her husband to file for divorce when he returned from a long-haul delivery job  — a job his employer denied to police having given him.

On Sunday, before she was taken into custody, Mrs. Ancona told The Washington Post that the Daily Journal had “gotten everything all wrong,” insisting that the Leadwood Police had “changed every single thing around that I said.”

Mrs. Ancona claimed that she last saw her husband on Thursday, not Wednesday, as had been previously widely reported. She also said she never told police her husband was planning to file for divorce, saying instead that her husband’s family had been encouraging him to divorce her since they were married in 2010.

“They’re trying to make it look like I did something,” she told The Washington Post. “He’s all I have. I don’t have any family of my own. … What would I get out of this?”

According to the Daily Journal Online, “all indications” suggest Ancona died in the Leadwood home he shared with his wife.

This is a developing story, and will be updated as more information becomes available.