This story contains graphic details that may be disturbing.
A New Hampshire man who found out his wife was having an affair murdered the lover and then forced her to decapitate the body, authorities alleged on Friday.
The macabre account was contained in the arrest warrant for Armando Barron, 30, and Britany Barron, 31, who are charged in the death of 25-year-old Jonathan Amerault.
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The wife confessed after wildlife conservation officers came upon her at the campsite where her husband had allegedly ordered her to dispose of Amerault’s remains and where they found his headless body.
“I’m in big trouble,” Britany Barron is said to have told the agents who found her in the woods.
In her statement to police, Britany said that last Saturday her husband went through her phone and realized she was romantically involved with Amerault, her co-worker at a medical device company in Jaffrey.
Armando Barron allegedly flew into a rage, beating and choking her until she passed out. Later that night, he used her phone to text Amerault and lure him to a park, the warrant says.
At the park, the husband viciously beat the victim, the wife said, and then tried to force her to shoot him or crush his throat with her foot. When she refused, he shot Amerault three times, killing him.
According to the warrant, Armando Barron ordered his wife to drive her lover's body to a campsite near Errol where they had been many times. “He communicated to her that once the sun came up the next morning he would forgive her,” the warrant says.
But once there, the nightmare did not end. Britany Barron claims that Armando made her saw off Amerault’s head, which was then buried in the dirt.
The next part of the plan was to dig a grave for the rest of the body. Armando planned to drive to Keene and send texts from Amerault’s phones to throw off anyone looking for the young man, Britany said.
But he got a call that police were looking for him and Britany. He headed back home and told her to dispose of the body before he returned, the warrant says.
Police had been alerted by Amerault’s mother that he was missing, and his colleagues at Teleflex told investigators that the co-worker he appeared to be having an affair with, Britany, had also not shown up on Monday.
Armando Barron was arrested while apparently making a getaway attempt with his 9-year-old daughter. He is charged with capital murder and his wife is charged with tampering with evidence.
She looked battered as she appeared in court Friday, where her attorney said all her actions were “under duress” and that she should be released on house arrest.
“In plain English, she helped solve this crime,” the lawyer, Richard Guerriero, told the judge, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader.
The prosecutor, Scott Chase, said she should stay behind bars. “She did cooperate. She cooperated after she was caught,” he told the judge, who ordered her to stay locked up. Her husband was also held without bond.
Amerault’s friends and family, meanwhile, were stunned by his slaying. An avid hiker, he graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a biomedical engineering degree in 2018.
“For someone to do something like that is crazy,” friend Danielle Atkinson told the Keene Sentinel. “He was such a great guy that it just doesn’t make sense.”
