The brother of an Ohio dad who was poisoned by his ex-wife during a child custody dispute said he's "forever haunted" after he was forced to tell the ex-couple's three daughters their mother killed their father.
Amanda Hovanec, 37, was sentenced to 40 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to several charges, including distributing a controlled substance that resulted in the death of her husband, Timothy Hovanec, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
She was also ordered to 10 years supervised release and instructed to pay more than $2 million in restitution.
At her sentencing hearing Tuesday, Timothy's brother described the effects of having to inform his nieces their dad was killed.
"I'm forever haunted with the memory of telling the girls their mother murdered their father," Daniel Hovanec, Timothy's younger brother, said, according to LimaOhio.com. "The hardest thing for me is trying to accept that I will never get to make any more memories with Tim."
During their marriage, the Hovanecs frequently moved for Timothy's job with the U.S. Department of State, and in 2018, the family transferred to South Africa, where Hovanec began an affair with a South African man named Anthony Theodorou, according to prosecutors.
In 2020, the family returned to the Toledo, Ohio area, and Hovanec filed for divorce from Timothy, triggering a turbulent child custody battle.
In April 2022, a judge ordered the children live with Timothy for two months over the summer, beginning that May.
But the court-ordered arrangement never happened, and as Timothy returned his girls to Hovanec at her Wapakoneta, Ohio, home following a weekend visit on April 24, 2022, she ambushed him outside his car after their kids were escorted inside by her mother, Anita Green.
The deadly attack was captured on Timothy's dashcam.
She later confessed to injecting Timothy with a fatal dose of an animal tranquilizer and burying his body in the woods near her home, said prosecutors.
Theodorou was in Ohio at the time of the incident and later admitted to providing Hovanec with the drug, M-99, also known as Etorphine, and helping her bury the victim.
For his part, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison and three years supervised release.
Green was sentenced to 10 years in prison and two years supervised release after pleading guilty to being an accessory.
