SI Advance – December 02, 2014
by Kristin F. Dalton
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — On Dec. 2, 2007, an Oakwood FDNY marshal was executed in his sleep with his own service weapon, while his two young daughters — ages 5 and 6 — slept in the next room.
Tuesday marks seven years from the day Douglas Mercereau was shot three times in the head at close range with his 9mm handgun in his 90 Tarring St. home.
Police zeroed in on his wife, Janet Redmond-Mercereau, whose cheerful behavior in the days and weeks after the murder earned her the nickname “The Merry Widow.” When news photographers gathered outside of her home to take photos, the then-40-year-old asked “Do you want me to pose for you?”, claiming she “felt like a model.”
Police believed she shot her husband, then wiped the weapon clean of prints, removed her clothes and threw them into the washing machine and took “several showers” to get rid of any gunpowder reside.
Mario Gallucci, Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau’s lawyer, maintained cops had been focusing all of their attention on an innocent woman.
Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau claimed that she didn’t hear the gun shots because she was in a deep sleep from a painkiller, as well as a prescription sleeping pill — and was wearing earplugs.
She claimed to have been sleeping in her children’s room when the shooting took place, even though her daughter said her mother wasn’t with them during an interview with an ACS social worker.
Police and ACS conducted four interviews with the girls and although they weren’t able to provide details of the killing, they were able to contradict their mother’s account of the crime.
The 12-member panel — which was sequestered during the deliberations — came to a unanimous verdict after being deadlocked for over three days. She was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life.
She is currently serving time at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in Westchester Country, N.Y.
Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau will not be eligible for parole until March 2033.
If the parole board does not grant her release, she will have to continue out her life sentence.
ACS placed the children in the New Jersey home of the victim’s brother, Brian.
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