FARMINGDALE, N.Y. (TCD) — A 30-year-old man will spend 25 years to life in prison for driving to his pregnant estranged wife’s apartment and fatally strangling her in 2020.
Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly announced Michael Owen’s sentencing Thursday, Jan. 11, about five months after he was convicted in July of 27-year-old Kelly Owen’s second-degree murder.
According to the district attorney’s office, the victim, a nursing student, and the suspect, a cell site technician, were separated at the time of the incident.
Kelly Owen shared custody of their 6-year-old child, and on Jan. 15, 2020, her father walked her child to school while she stayed behind at her apartment on her parents’ property, the district attorney’s office said.
Kelly Owen reportedly worked as an aide for an elementary school after-care program, and when she didn’t show up to work that day, a co-worker called her parents. Kelly Owen’s parents then went to check on their daughter and found her dead.
According to the district attorney’s office, Kelly Owen had been “strangled with a rope-like object,” and officials discovered she was “in the early stages of pregnancy” with her estranged husband’s child.
Investigators obtained video surveillance footage that showed Michael Owen’s car in his estranged wife’s neighborhood that morning. He reportedly parked two blocks from Kelly Owen’s apartment and turned off his cellphone to avoid location tracking. After killing his estranged wife, the district attorney’s office said Michael Owen erased text messages from his and Kelly Owen’s phones.
During the investigation, police obtained DNA evidence from around the victim’s neck matching that of Michael Owen.
Nassau County Police Department’s Homicide Squad initially arrested Owen on Jan. 28, 2020.
Donnelly said in a statement, “Kelly was a young mother and pregnant with Owen’s child at the time of her brutal murder. She worked with children and had dreams of becoming a nurse. Michael Owen stole those dreams, and now he will pay for his crimes in prison.”
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