Ann Maxine Patton, the US woman accused of killing her wealthy husband John Felix Bender on January 8th, 2010, is scheduled to begin her third murder trial at 8 a.m. Monday morning.

The trial will take place at the Perez Zeledon Criminal Court and is expected to last at least one week.

The same court dropped charges against Patton in January 2013 following her first murder trial, deciding it had insufficient evidence to convict her.

Prosecutors appealed the decision, and on September 2nd, 2013 an appeals court agreed that evidence in the case was not properly considered during the first trial and ordered a retrial of the case.

Patton was found guilty of murder in the May 2014 retrial and sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Patton’s attorney, Fabio Oconitrillo appealed the verdict before the Court of Criminal Appeals, claiming that the police investigation was flawed. The court agreed to a retrial and freed Patton from the El Buen Pastor women’s prison on February 19th of this year, under the condition that she not leave the country.

Speaking to Inside Costa Rica (Now Owned by The Costa Rica Star) throughout her previous trials, Patton, who says her husband’s death was a suicide, has always maintained her innocence.

Her latest trial will be adjudicated by a new set of judges rather than those who previously tried her case.

Background

According to Patton, her husband committed suicide at 12:15 a.m. on January 8th, 2010, while the two were alone in their bedroom on the 4th floor of their mansion in Baru, Perez Zeledon. She said she awoke to find her husband with the gun; when she tried to take it away from him, it fired.

Initially, police believed Patton’s account of the events, but as the investigation got underway, investigators soon believed that Patton murdered her husband.

According to authorities, the position of the body was an important factor in raising their suspicion. Secondly, after examining the victim’s wounds, it was found that there was no exit wound from the bullet, which would be expected in such a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The bullet was fired into the right of Bender’s head, who was left-handed. As well, the firearm was found far from the victim’s body, and there were no gunpowder residues on Bender’s hands.

And, while Patton claimed that her husband was bipolar and depressive, others, including friends and co-workers said that Bender was in good psychological health, and did not suffer from depression.

From Wall Street to the Jungles of Costa Rica

Patton’s husband, John Felix Bender had earned in excess of $600 million with what was described as a mathematical approach to Wall Street investing. He ran several arbitrage funds before suffering a stroke in 2000, according to online sources.

One of Bender’s ex-coworkers from the Philadelphia Stock Exchange said of Bender, “John is the smartest person I’ve ever met. He was a brilliant mathematician. […] He was amazingly smart and quick…The last I heard, John’s fortune was about half a billion dollars. John got very rich using mathematics to understand things.”

Patton met her husband in the U.S. in March of 1998. Early in their relationship they found that they both suffered from bipolar disorder, according to Patton, which she said brought them closer and hastened their relationship.

Patton stated that when they got married, they decided to invest in an ecological project, and began to buy properties in Costa Rica.

In 2000, they moved to San Isidro de El General, and the year after that, they moved to Baru. They were awarded permanent residency in Costa Rica.

The couple’s mansion was an amazing 4-story, 8,000-squared foot house, which included an elevator, pool and helipad. It is said to be valued at $4.5 million. Authorities found over 300 Tiffany lamps inside the house, as well as over 3,000 precious gems. Among them were diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds.

The number of precious stones was such that investigators on the scene, initially attempting to count the diamonds and gems, later decided to simply begin weighing them and packing them into suitcases. In all, 4 suitcases full of diamonds and gems were removed from the home – and placed into the vaults of Costa Rica’s Central Bank.

Patton told Inside Costa Rica at the time that she simply collected the gems as a hobby. In a separate case against Patton, however, the San Jose Tax Court accused Patton of participating in the illicit trafficking of diamonds and precious stones.

Not everything was pretty in paradise

Patton told Inside Costa Rica that both her and her husband suffered from bi-polar disorder and depression, and that her husband had expressed on multiple occasions his desire to take his life. Patton also said that a series of events, including an April 2001 encounter with a group of armed men that stopped their vehicle in Perez Zeledon to inform her husband that he was being sued for $98 million in the United States – an encounter that led to the couple purchasing several handguns and rifles – were not helping matters.

Patton said both her and her husband would regularly travel to the United States to receive treatment for depression