Marissa Devault : A Web of Lies

By Nikki Dixon

On January 14th 2009, Marissa DeVault entered the master bedroom that she and Dale Harrell shared, and beat him to near-death whilst he slept. She carried out several strikes on Harrell's head with a hammer, which in turn caused multiple skull fractures and he was taken to hospital...DeVault told law enforcement officials that Harrell was assaulted by an unknown assailant who had attempted to break into the home. Judging by her calm and relaxed demeanor, the police grew suspicious of DeVault...and what they would soon uncover would be a lifetime of lies worthy of a crime novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jul 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201254261

Book preview

MARISSA DEVAULT : A WEB OF LIES

NIKKI DIXON

table of contents

MARISSA DEVAULT

LOUISE PEETE

DENA THOMPSON

VIRGINIA LARZELERE

BETTY LOU BEETS

JANIE LOU GIBBS

JUDY BUENOANO

KRISTIN ROSSUM

LYDA TRUE BLOOD

MARGARET RUDIN

MICHELLE REYNOLDS

MICHELLE HALL

On a Wednesday night in Gilbert, Maricopa County, Arizona, Dale Harrell went to bed just like every other night, completely unaware that his supposedly loving partner would sneak into his bedroom and murder him in his sleep.

On January 14th 2009, Marissa DeVault entered the master bedroom that she and Dale Harrell shared, and beat him to near-death whilst he slept. She carried out several strikes on Harrell’s head with a hammer, which in turn caused multiple skull fractures and he was taken to hospital.

DeVault told law enforcement officials that Harrell was assaulted by an unknown assailant who had attempted to break into the home. Judging by her calm and relaxed demeanor, the police grew suspicious of DeVault. And when push came to shove, the police did not believe DeVault. DeVault was arrested on the same night and charged with aggravated assault. She was held at a local jail for the night, and later released on bail. The bail money was paid by a wealthy lover of DeVault’s - Allen Flores, who would play a pivotal role in the trial.

Officers found no red marks on DeVault’s neck and the murder weapon at the scene of the crime. The hammer was reportedly covered with blood at the time of recovery. At a later date, when DeVault would claim that she was acting in self defense, the matter of no bruising or sign of struggle on DeVault’s person would prove the unreliability of her claim.

Three weeks after DeVault’s release, which coincided with the death of Dale Harrell, DeVault was discovered in a field after having been assaulted. According to DeVault, she was surprised by an unidentifiable attacker and left on the side of the road with both a broken jaw and a broken ankle. DeVault was indicted for first degree murder that day.

So much of the incident was shrouded in mystery and inconsistencies. And at the center of it all, was Marissa DeVault, laughing and joking with interviewers whilst her husband slowly died in hospital. Investigators were confident that it was DeVault, but had to ask themselves why? And why was she found beaten half to death by the side of the road? Everything would slowly be revealed as DeVault loses track of her lies.

DeVault changed her account to pin the blame on her roommate, Stanley Cook Jr. Cook was a prime scapegoat, he suffered a brain injury that ultimately caused extremely short term memory loss and had made him somewhat malleable and easy to convince. So Cook then validated DeVault’s claim, but was unable to provide further details of the crime. The forensics team investigating the incident were unable to place Cook at the scene of the crime. With a lack of any further evidence, and taking his condition into account, police dropped any suspicion.

It was later discovered that DeVault had asked Cook to paralyze her, so she could claim on her own life insurance policy. After discussing the idea, Cook decided not to shoot her in the spine, as it was too dangerous, and to instead, attack DeVault in the head and in the ankle with a sledgehammer, and to dump her body on the side of a nearby road. After DeVault took a large quantity of painkillers, Cook carried out the attack and even called her cellphone multiple times to corroborate with the story, that DeVault was out jogging when she was attacked.

Once investigators confronted DeVault with evidence that countered her version of the incident, she confessed on camera during a police interview, that she was the murderer.

Prosecutors suggested that DeVault had pushed Cook to sign the false confession so she could claim on insurance money. The insurance money would then be used to pay back a debt to a lover.

Harrell was cremated at a mortuary, and his ashes were surprisingly given to DeVault, whom withheld them from the family of Harrell. It seems odd that the coroner would give the ashes of a victim of murder to the suspected assailant. The parents of Dale Harrell requested the ashes from DeVault, whom subsequently refused, and so the family sued DeVault for punitive damages and for Harrell’s ashes.

DeVault signed a 300-page confession with the local police force wherein she confirmed alleged spousal abuse when living with Harrell, including years of beatings and rape, which gave DeVault the motive to commit murder.

According to the report, DeVault was repeatedly put in hospital with physical injuries and Harrell was even violent towards her in front of numerous witnesses. During this episode, DeVault dislocated her shoulder and an eyewitness helped put the shoulder back in its socket. Unfortunately for DeVault, the supposed eyewitnesses didn’t confirm her story and she was found to be lying.

Amy Dewey, an old college friend of Marissa DeVault lived with both DeVault and Harrell for 4 months, and spent time looking after the children. Dewey was reportedly not impressed by DeVault’s mothering skills. She described DeVault as manipulative, a bad mother, a bad wife and controlling. Dewey claimed that Harrell was unfairly treated by DeVault, and it was often DeVault whom started the domestic fights.

Around the same time as the 300-page report, the police began interviewing friends of Harrell and DeVault, and found no testimonies from friends to Harrell’s alleged abusiveness, although DeVault’s 13 year old daughter did state that her parents were often mutually abusive.

The interviews did find, however, that DeVault was a known liar, and had previously told friends that she received a large inheritance from the death of her stepfather. It later came to light that the stepfather was in fact not deceased, but very much alive. On top of this, DeVault was found out to have lied about an older lover and businessman, Allen Flores.

Allen Flores played a pivotal role in the trial of Marissa DeVault. DeVault introduced Flores to the police as an (ex)sexual partner of her stepfather, which of course was revealed as false.

DeVault had apparently borrowed over $360’000 from Flores, which he loaned her during a two year relationship. DeVault and Flores met online, through a dating website designed to introduce women with money troubles to richer men looking for female company (known as sugar daddies). Flores, as a businessman, was capable to lend such large amounts of money, but not without some degree of security, DeVault had lied to Flores, and claimed that she was due to receive inheritance from her deceased stepfather (who wasn’t actually dead) to the sum of approximately $20,000,000. Flores naturally put the loan in writing and added an interest rate of 2.5%. DeVault signed a contract promising to pay Flores the money she owed him in 2007, and another again in 2009, which promised to pay off the amount by the end of the year. At this time, DeVault lied to Flores about receiving a large inheritance.

After police were introduced to Flores, they searched his house and found a computer containing child pornography. At this point Flores agreed to testify on the premise that he would receive full immunity over the child pornography charges.

Flores testified in court that DeVault had planned to either use some of the money she had borrowed from Flores to hire an assassin to kill Harrell, or do it herself. He even made a note of giving DeVault a separate $7,000 to hire a hit man to kill Harrell. After failing to hire the assassin, DeVault told Flores that she now planned to tell police that Harrell had tried to rape her after a night of drinking.

By 2008, Flores had become suspicious of DeVault, and began recording her statements and documenting her correspondence with him, in case he was harmed. One of Flores’ documents contained both a statement made by DeVault to claim on an insurance premium and a note stating that DeVault had told Flores that she was going to have Harrell Murdered. Flores also testified in court, stating that DeVault had told him, one day before the attack, that Harrell had assaulted her and she had killed him with a tire iron in self defense. Flores later discovered that Harrell and DeVault had gone out together that evening and no violent event had occurred.

The defense attacked Flores’ credibility, drawing attention to the fact that he was given an immunity agreement on the child pornography charges incurred during the investigation. During the trial, Flores was portrayed as a victim of DeVault’s scheme. Flores gave evidence against DeVault, explaining that he gave DeVault advice on claiming insurance and even edited the false confession letter that was put to Stanley Cook Jr.

Another former lover of DeVault’s also testified in court, claiming that DeVault had attempted to recruit him to kill Harrell, using the specific words take care of. DeVault had previously told this lover that Harrell was already dead from stomach cancer, and was shocked to find out that Harrell was even alive. At this point, the former lover decided to avoid the lying DeVault, and claims that he was unsure what DeVault meant by her proposal.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery claimed that Flores could still be prosecuted for the contents of his computer. The Maricopa County law enforcement take a hard stance on child pornography, and so despite the claims that Flores was pushed to falsely testify against DeVault for immunity, he was still liable to prosecution, though only on the grounds that Flores agrees that he was in possession of the pornographic material.

Ultimately an official statement was released, claiming that the seizure of the pornography was a violation of the Fourth Amendment right against illegal searches. 

Judge Roland Steinle requested the jury leave the courtroom a number of times to scold both the prosecution and the defense attorneys for numerous reasons, including eliciting embarrassing details about the daughter after the prosecution failed to get her to admit that DeVault was frequently abusive towards Harrell.

The prosecution aimed for the death penalty, whilst the defense based their argument on the basis that DeVault was not fit for the death penalty and suffered with battered woman syndrome (essentially an argument in the United Kingdom and United States that puts forward the idea that women can be forced to commit murder in order to escape an extremely abusive relationship). Battered woman syndrome essentially states that a woman doesn’t want to commit murder but after years of abuse, they are forced to. The defense also claimed that DeVault suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, which gives weight to a mercy plea and would help DeVault avoid the death sentence. 

In light of the confession, both prosecution and defense attorneys opened the trial with an examination of DeVault’s motive.

Prosecutors claimed that DeVault murdered Harrell with the hammer to claim on two separate life insurance policies. One of which was only taken out 2 weeks before the fatal attack. With the money claimed, she would pay back her debt to Allen Flores. The total amount of both insurance policies totaled $1,250,000. She apparently owed a total of $300,000 to Allen Flores.

The defense claimed that Harrell attacked DeVault when he was drunk and had a history of abusing her. The assault with the hammer was merely an act of self-defense gone too far.

The jury was selected in January 2014 and people were only selected if they had not been focused on the Jodi Arias trial that occurred in the same court room a few years prior. The Jodi Arias case had a lot in common with that of Marissa DeVault, notably that their early life and living situation at the time of the murder were remarkably similar.

At the time, the judge wanted to focus on the trial at hand, and refused to let the trial become another sensationalist trial like the one of Jodi Arias. The judge then refused to allow Flores’ child pornography scandal or the fact that DeVault was once a stripper have an effect on the outcome. The case was intended to stay out of the media’s eye, but of course this wasn’t what happened.

Similarities between Jodi Arias and Marissa DeVault

Jodi Arias murdered her ex-partner and claimed that she acted in self-defense. Arias, much like DeVault, claimed that her partner Travis Alexander was physically and sexually abusive, and so she stabbed him 27 to 29 times before shooting him in the head and slitting his throat.

Arias attempted to claim that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, much like DeVault and was found to be sound of mind. Ultimately, both trials caused a huge public outcry when both women were found to have lied about the history of domestic violence.

Many people, including the media, accused DeVault of being inspired by Jodi Arias, and copying Arias’ defense in an attempt to avoid the death penalty. Velez Mitchell, a reporter for CNN even stated: some would say an acting job from the Jodi Arias school of acting. Remember, they`re both going to the same courthouse for trial. They`ve been housed in the same facility. It`s almost like Jodi Arias was the method acting teacher who taught her how to do this.

The Early Life of DeVault

The defense claimed that DeVault had gone through horrible and extensive abuse as a child, claiming that her mother had physically abused her whilst her stepfather had sexually abused her.

A clinical psychologist, Dr. Jon Conte, testified on behalf of the defense, advising that it is common for the victims of child abuse to act in a similar manner to Marissa DeVault. Dr Conte advised that DeVault’s actions were representative of people with an extensive history of child abuse, therefore posing the argument that DeVault is a product of her environment. The prosecution countered this argument with concrete evidence proving that DeVault gave custody of her children to her mother and stepfather. This shows a blatant disregard for her childrens’ well-being, which would be grounds for having antisocial personality disorder, or to have lied about the prior abuse, which weakens the defense's argument.

When the authorities looked into DeVault’s background, they found that she had a brief career as an exotic dancer or stripper. Some sources allude to the fact that DeVault was stripping whilst in the relationship with Dale Harrell, unbeknownst to him.

One of DeVault’s children testified, corroborating the evidence that Harrell had been abusive to DeVault, though the prosecution countered with a testimony from clinical psychologist Dr. Janeen DeMarte, who claimed that DeVault had antisocial personality disorder, which is characterized by a pattern of disregarding or violating the rights of others, and a degradation in conscience.

Dr DeMarte also raised the question as to why DeVault gave custody of her children to her mother and stepfather. If her parents had indeed abused her, then it seems ridiculous that she would let her parents take care of her children.

The