The idea of swinging, open marriages and partner swapping seems like a joyful epiphany on paper.
But sometimes, the dynamics can change and sex becomes love. Then, someone ends up in the morgue.
There is not much to do in tiny Iowa County, Iowa: Population 16,000. Even a big city like Cedar Rapids is around 45 minutes away.
So, it stood to reason that a couple like Tonch and Amanda Weldon might want to get up to some sexual mischief. One of the players that dropped into their lives was Amy Gephart.
She even moved into the couple’s home where she had sex with Amanda, then Tonch, and then with the two of them together. But something was happening unbeknownst to Tonch.
The two women had fallen in love with each other and wanted the third wheel out of the picture.
“What the court has to understand is that Amanda and Tonch Weldon consider themselves swingers, for lack of a better word,” lawyer Edward Leff said. “They engaged in consensual sexual relations with others as a couple or as individuals.”
And, apparently, there was no jealousy or animosity between them, initially.
Amanda later said: “I was falling in love with her.”
But the two women were playing with fire if one of his MySpace posts (remember them?) was any indication. Tonch Weldon noted his sometimes sour disposition in affairs of the heart.
He wrote: “I am the best guy in the world until you start pushing my buttons or screwing with my people. I am also a die-hard hunter, I live to terrorize all those cute furry critters and turn them into cute tasty steaks.”
Tonch Weldon got the bad news from his wife and their bedmate on June 7, 2009, at their home 5 km north of Marengo. The couple’s two children were in the house.
The adults argued and Tonch Weldon got out his 20-gauge shotgun and shot Gephart, 35, in the heart. Then he turned the gun on himself. In his hospital bed, he was charged with first-degree murder.
His public defenders desperately tried to keep the torrid aspects of the case in the trial. A judge agreed and ruled that the couple’s swinging lifestyle was pertinent to the case.
Prosecutors had feared the case’s earthier aspects would “dirty up” Gephart’s reputation.
Leff said: “Clearly that is relevant in terms of motive or lack of motive. It could go to lack of jealousy. It was a consensual three-way sexual relationship between Tonch, Amy and Amanda.”
Amanda Weldon testified the couple had an open marriage and that Gephart lived with them as their sexual partner — until the two women fell in love. She said they decided to ditch Tonch.
During the trial, the defence argued the shooting was a “crime of passion” and happened in the moment without premeditation. He asked them to consider voluntary manslaughter.
Throughout proceedings, Tonch Weldon sobbed and was highly emotional.
On July 26, 2011, the jury returned its verdict after an agonizing five days of deliberations. Tonch Weldon was guilty of first-degree murder.
This time, Weldon showed no emotion although his mother sobbed. He sat stone-faced as his fate was delivered. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The Gephart family said in a statement: “Amy was our only child and we had 35 wonderful years with her. She was a talented writer, photographer, and musician. She loved children and shared her interest in science and nature with them.
“The domestic violence issue was very near to Amy’s heart and she would assist victims in any way possible through food, clothing and finances.”
DICAPRIO STARRING AS AMERICA’S FIRST SERIAL KILLER
Dr. H.H. Holmes was a con man, a fraud, a quack and America’s first serial killer.
Now, mega-star Leonardo DiCaprio is poised to play Holmes in an adaptation based on Erik Larson’s non-fiction bestseller, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness At The Fair That Changed America.
Even better, Martin Scorsese has signed on to direct.
At the spectacular 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, Holmes bought and expanded a bizarre hotel of horrors. There, he is suspected of possibly murdering hundreds of people and then incinerating their bodies.
Included in the twisted premises were a gas chamber, a dissection table and a crematorium. It later became known as the “Murder Castle.”
But cops were onto him and Holmes fled across the Detroit River into Canada. In tow were the three young children of his murdered business partner, Benjamin Pitezel. He murdered all three in Toronto.
Holmes then buried their naked bodies in the cellar of his Toronto hideout at 16 St. Vincent St. (now St. Vincent Lane) A determined Philadelphia detective named Frank Geyer found the children’s bodies.
The serial killer was finally arrested in Boston. He went on trial in 1895 and was sentenced to death. After Holmes was convicted, he confessed to 27 murders In Toronto, Indianapolis and Chicago.
The killer walked the 13 steps to the gallows at the now-closed Moyamensing Prison (shuttered in 1963) in South Philly on May 7, 1896. It was a fitting end.
Holmes’ neck didn’t snap. Instead, he slowly strangled to death. Reports said he twitched for 15 minutes before he was declared dead.