CNN.com - Florida retiree found guilty in wife's killing

By Emanuella Grinberg
Court TV

Donald Moringiello, of Fort Myers, Florida, was convicted of second-degree murder.

FORT MYERS, Florida (COURT TV) -- A wealthy Florida retiree was found guilty of second-degree murder for shooting his wife and dumping her body in the bay behind their upscale Fort Myers, Florida, home in July 2002.

Donald Moringiello shook his head and frowned as a bailiff read the verdict aloud in Lee County Circuit Court after just under three hours of deliberations Tuesday afternoon. His family, sitting behind him, sat in stunned silence as the 65-year-old retiree was fingerprinted and taken into custody.

Moringiello stood trial in August 2004 for the death of his second wife, Hattie "Fern" Bergeler, whose body was found floating face-down in the waters off Florida's west coast on July 18, 2002, just five houses from the couple's bayside home.

His first jury deadlocked 5 to 1 in favor of acquittal.

"We're very, very disappointed with the verdict, but this was a different jury," said defense attorney Wilbur Smith, a former Fort Myers mayor.

Potential jurors who had knowledge of the last trial were excluded from the panel.

"The last jury was very critical of the sloppy police work, but this one did not even know about the last trial, so right from the start we knew this was not going to be an analytical jury," he said.

The retired aerospace engineer elected not to testify in his defense, which he had done at his first trial.

Moringiello told jurors in 2004 that he last saw his wife of 12 years on July 15, following an argument the two had over his plans to visit his children from a first marriage in Connecticut.

He said his wife had packed a bag and left the home and he left for Connecticut on a plane three days later, expecting her to meet him there.

When he did not hear from her over the next few weeks, he said he assumed that his independent-minded wife had taken an extended vacation to get away from him.

But Smith said the defense did not regret its decision to keep Moringiello off the stand, given the state of the evidence.

"This trial went much faster and there was much less evidence," he said. "Based on how things were going, we feel we made the right decision."

This time, jurors also missed out on testimony from a prison inmate, who testified last summer that the defendant admitted to killing his wife because he was "fed up" with her demanding ways and she refused to divorce him because of their standing in the community.

Instead, the state presented new evidence in the form of a jailhouse phone call between the defendant and his son, Doug Moringiello, who died of a heroin overdose in 2003, although jurors did not learn the cause of his death.

In the phone call, Moringiello told his son that his wife kept a Bersa .380 handgun for protection.

Almost two hours into deliberations, the court rejected jurors' request to hear a phone conversation Moringiello had with his wife's niece, Lorri Siebert, on August 13, 2002.

In the phone call, Moringiello called to tell her he was concerned that he had not seen his wife in a month.

He also told her that Bergeler was uncomfortable with the handgun and during a boating trip in early 2002, she tossed it into the Gulf of Mexico.

The gun later turned up in the water behind the home and was identified as the weapon used to kill Bergeler.

Siebert testified in both trials that, when she asked her stepuncle if he had contacted police, he said no, which immediately set off alarms in her mind.

The conversation led Siebert to contact police, who immediately confirmed that Bergeler was the mystery woman they had found in the bay.

Police searched the Moringiello home the next day and found droplets of blood that were later matched to both Bergeler and Moringiello. They arrested him on the spot and he has been in custody ever since.

Siebert cried as the verdict was read and expressed relief after the verdict.

"I'm just really glad this is over and that we can get on with our lives," she said outside of court. "To go through this twice has been really hard on all of us."

Assistant District Attorney Betsy Biffl also appeared emotional as the verdict was read.

"I'm just really, really glad for the family, and glad for Fern," she said in between tears, after the verdict. "This has been a long three years for everyone."

Moringiello faces life in prison when he is sentenced in August.

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