Main: Christopher Palazzzolo in court (WILX). Inset: Elise Palazzolo (Gorsline Runciman Funeral Homes).
A 44-year-old man in Michigan will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars for repeatedly abusing and torturing his wife ahead of her suspicious death in 2021, justifying his actions by claiming she had voluntarily signed a “waiver consent form” permitting him to discipline her in any way he saw fit.
Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina on Wednesday ordered Christopher Palazzolo to serve 40 to 80 years in a state correctional facility for the harm he inflicted on his wife, Elise Palazzolo, in the months leading up to her death. He faced a potential maximum sentence of life in prison.
Aquilina handed down the sentence after a jury in July deliberated for just over an hour before finding Christopher Palazzolo guilty on one count of torture and one count of domestic violence, court records show. The judge credited him with 93 days of time already served.
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While Elise Palazzolo died of a prescription drug overdose in the couple”s Williamston apartment, prosecutors said that the physical and mental torment she suffered at the hands of her husband played a significant role in her death.
“You knew she took those drugs,” Aquilina said during Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, according to local news radio station WHMI. “You have a duty, an elevated duty, as a husband to protect her, to help her, to dial 911 and you did nothing. If you didn’t want to call 911, you call her parents, you call her sister. Hundreds of people in the community would have come to your door and helped you. You could’ve made a phone call, what do I do? I’m sure the answer would have been call 911. But you didn’t do that. You didn’t care. You watched her slowly die.”
When Christopher Palazzolo’s wife died in May 2021, authorities said she had suffered a series of physical injuries in various stages of healing — a telltale sign of ongoing physical abuse, the Lansing State Journal reported. She was covered in bruises and scars, some of which prosecutors said could be identified as the result of being whipped with a metal hanger and shot with an Airsoft gun.
Christopher Palazzolo reportedly admitted to authorities that he was responsible for the physical abuse his wife suffered, but justified that abuse by claiming his wife had written and signed a “waiver consent form” permitting him to physically punish her when she lied. He even provided photographs of Elise Palazzolo composing the document, which purportedly allowed Christopher Palazzolo to choke her and cut her with a knife.
A medical examiner could not determine Elise Palazzolo’s manner of death, but prosecutors pushed back on the “waiver” defense, asserting that even if such a document were legal — which is highly unlikely — it was still entirely “unreasonable” to follow. They further told the court it would be unlikely Christopher Palazzolo would have “gone along with the idea if he wasn’t the type of person who engaged in the crimes of domestic violence and torture on her.”
