The husband of a 26-year-old woman who was found shot to death in her Pennsylvania home on Monday was arrested Tuesday at a Las Vegas casino with $100,000 in cash.
And in an eerie twist, the suspect, Art Guty Jr., was himself the target of a previous murder-for-hire plot, put together by his first wife in 2019.
“He was on his way, we believe, out of the country with a significant amount of cash and was going to avoid, or try to avoid, any responsibility for what happened here,” said Fayette County District Attorney Mike Aubele told WTAE.
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Guty, 55, married Nicole Zambrano, 26, a housekeeper, about a year ago. The Venezuelan immigrant didn't show up for work at a resort three days in a row last week, and her colleagues called police.
Police found her dead on Monday but believe she was killed before that. They issued a homicide warrant for her husband and used cellphone pings to track Guty to the Mardi Gras Casino in Vegas.
It turns out that Guty’s first wife, Roxanne, was arrested four years ago for allegedly trying to hire a hitman to kill him for life insurance money. She pleaded guilty to lesser charges.
Guty’s friend, Carlos Ramirez, later introduced him to Zambrano. “It was me who got them together. I introduced Art to her. That’s what hurts me a lot,” Ramirez told WTAE.
Zambrano was reportedly last heard from Christmas Eve, and authorities say Guty told neighbors in Uniontown they were going to Florida or the Grand Canyon.
Neighbor Bob Luick said he was shocked to learn the truth. But he told WPXI that there were signs of trouble in the relationship.
“I’ll you what, he made a statement maybe a month ago that he thought she was messing around on him, and this is exactly the way he said it, he was sitting right there, he said, ‘If I find out she’s messing around, I’ll kill her,’” Luick said.
