(Editor’s Note: Juror deliberations began Monday, November 23.)
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Ashley Nicole Biggs, 25, was murdered. How many people were responsible? Chad Cobb, the father of her daughter, already pleaded guilty to being the actual killer, but prosecutors in Summit County, Ohio now say that his then-wife Erica Stefanko, 37, played a role too.
Biggs, a Domino’s pizza delivery driver and a former Army vet, was murdered late on June 20, 2012. Investigators claim that a female caller lured her to a closed business, where Cobb ambushed her by tasing, beating, and then using a zip tie to strangle her. Biggs and Cobb has been in the middle of a custody battle over their daughter.
The male defendant pleaded guilty in 2013 to charges of aggravated murder and kidnapping. In exchange, the state declined to pursue the death penalty. Cobb, now 38, was instead sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
But this case wasn’t over yet. Authorities said new evidence tied her to the case. They assert she was the female caller who lured Biggs to the murder scene.
“She was a sweet girl,” Ashley’s mother Helen Biggs said of her daughter in a News 5 Cleveland report. “Loving mother.”
“She was a beautiful human being,” said cousin Jennifer Biggs.
[Mugshot of Stefanko via Summit County]