A Missouri woman who admitted fatally shooting her husband—a Ku Klux Klan imperial wizard—and dumping his body in a river was sentenced Friday to life in prison for the February 2017 slaying.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Malissa Ancona, 46, said she fired the two shots that killed Frank Ancona Jr., 51, at their Leadwood home. Upon pleading guilty to second-degree murder, tampering with evidence, and abandonment of a corpse, she said her son, Paul Jinkerson Jr., 26, didn’t have a role in the murder aside from helping her conceal it.
Jinkerson is facing the same charges his mother pleaded guilty to last week. His mother’s courtroom confession possibly poses an issue for prosecutors as she didn’t implicate him in the slaying.
The month of his murder, Frank told The New York Times that he had been with the Klan for three decades and founded the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 2009. The news outlet reported that the hate group’s small sect grabbed headlines in 2014 when it distributed pamphlets vowing to use “lethal force” against protestors demonstrating in Ferguson, Missouri, following the death of Mike Brown.
The self-proclaimed KKK member reportedly led the Traditional American Knights until his death.
According to the Post-Dispatch, Malissa initially told investigators that her son used a 9 millimeter to fatally shoot her husband as he slept after he asked for a divorce. She recanted her claims in jail letters sent last year, claiming that she was “under the influence” at the time and couldn’t recall the details regarding her husband’s murder.
The coroner determined that Frank died of two gunshots to the head. USA Today reported that Malissa had reported her husband missing days before his body was discovered on a river bank river Belgrade.
Malissa has since admitted to cleaning the bloodied bedroom walls and discarding the bedding before dumping her husband’s body.
The slain man’s father told the court that he identified his son’s body, which he described as having “no face left.”
His daughter tearfully said, “He didn’t deserve this. No one deserves this.”
Wife & stepson of KKK Imperial Wizard Frank Ancona charged w/1st degree murder in his death. #kmov pic.twitter.com/VdGVh8tpyL
— Russell Kinsaul (@russellkinsaul) February 13, 2017
[Featured image: Frank Ancona Jr./Youtube video screengrab]
