Ohio woman arrested, accused of killing her husband and staging suffocation as suicide

7/12/2014

AVON LAKE, Ohio — A northeast Ohio woman has been arrested in the 2011 murder of her husband, a death she initially reported as a suicide by suffocation.

Area news outlets report 56-year-old Jeane L. Harrington, of Avon Lake, was taken into custody Thursday after a three-year police investigation into the death of her husband, Michael C. Gabel.

In a 911 call, Harrington told police she found her 55-year-old husband dead, with plastic wrap around his head. She said he’d left a note, and described heavy debts coming due.

Police say the Lorain County coroner determined Gabel died of asphyxiation, blows to his head, truck and extremities and electrical burns.

An 11-year-old son, home at the time, has told police Harrington attacked Gabel with a stun gun before suffocating him with industrial-strength plastic wrap.