Woman who reported Pennsylvania man's death as suicide charged with murder 11 years later

A woman who told investigators that a man killed himself at their home in Pennsylvania has been charged with his murder more than a decade later, the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office announced on Monday.

Prosecutors said Betty Jane Adams was arrested in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, last month in the 2015 death of John Wesley Alleman. 

Investigators said Adams told police that on May 1, 2015, Alleman called her into his bedroom at their home in Middlesex Township, and they started arguing. The district attorney's office said she told police that during the fight, Alleman pulled out a handgun and shot at her before turning the gun on himself.

The two had a "romantic relationship" and had been living together for 10 years before the shooting, District Attorney Seán McCormack said.

An autopsy ruled Alleman's manner of death a homicide, but the district attorney said Adams stuck to her story, including when she was interviewed again in 2021. However, "certain uncorroborated facts" and "inconsistent scene evidence" led to doubts about Alleman's death, the district attorney's office said. 

No additional bullets were found at the scene, and Alleman's right arm was partially tucked under a bedsheet, which is inconsistent with how it would have been if he had shot himself in the head, authorities said.

The case began to move quickly after a detective formerly with the Pennsylvania State Police joined the district attorney's office. Additional information and an expert review of evidence developed over the past few years, the DA said, led to detectives seeking a warrant for Adams' arrest, more than 11 years later. 

"It's one thing for the pathologist to say that this is a homicide," McCormack said at a news conference livestreamed by CBS affiliate WHP. "It's another thing for us to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal court, and you have to have enough evidence to move forward. So to put those pieces together to get to that end result that the pathologist saw at the autopsy, to add all the evidence that you need to go forward, is what we've been doing." 

The arrest warrant was sealed to allow detectives to travel from Pennsylvania to South Carolina without alerting Adams. It was unsealed on Monday after Adams had a preliminary hearing, McCormack said.  

Adams is charged with first-degree murder and third-degree murder. Her formal arraignment is scheduled for Aug. 10.