NEW ORLEANS — Vince Marinello, the once flamboyant New Orleans broadcaster died at the Dixon Correctional Center last Friday.
The 82-year-old was serving a life sentence for murdering his estranged wife Mary Elizabeth Marinello in 2006.
According to investigators, Marinello purchased a disguise, armed himself, approached his wife on a bike, then shot her twice in the face in a Metairie parking lot.
"It's a tragedy on many different levels," attorney Chick Foret said.
Foret was Marinello's attorney for a short time after the murder.
He was with Marinello the night detectives searched his Lakeview FEMA trailer.
That's where investigators found a checklist of how to commit and cover up the crime.
"We were actually shocked it mentioned the bike, the gun and some other things and it was almost a checklist of what he had to do," the late Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee said at the time.
Foret admits he had no idea there was a list in the trailer.
"No one was more shocked than me when Harry Lee called me over to his car and told me about the list," Foret said.
In 2008, a jury in Lafayette found Marinello guilty of second-degree murder. The trial was moved to Lafayette because of the pre-trial publicity surrounding the case.
Marinello's long time friend and former co-worker Ro Brown visited him at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
"He never talked about what happened when I was there," Brown said. "Asked about my family. Asked about me. Talked about sports. Introduced me to some of the other inmates there."
Brown said it's still hard for him to connect the Vince Marinello he knew to the man who died in prison after killing his wife.
"You've got somebody who's convicted of shooting somebody in the face twice and you also know this person who couldn't drive by a mangy dog, a stray dog without picking it up, putting him in the car and taking him home," Brown said.
Marinello's case was among the most high-profile following Hurricane Katrina.
"The jury found him guilty," Foret said. "If in fact he was guilty, it's an indefensible situation. But, Katrina did a lot of crazy things to people and made people do a lot of crazy things.
Marinello died from natural causes.
"I'm not sure I felt anything when I found out yesterday," Brown said. "It was just kind of what I expected. I didn't know when, but you knew it was going to happen."
Foret says a priest called him from Dixon Correctional a couple of weeks ago to tell him Marinello was gravely ill.
The priest told Foret, Marinello made peace with the Lord before he died.
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