A jury found a former lab assistant guilty Thursday of murdering his boss’ estranged husband by stuffing the man’s body in a barrel of acid.
James Fagone, 24, and biochemist Larissa Schuster, 46, were arrested after authorities found the decomposed body of Timothy Schuster in a storage unit that his estranged wife had rented in July 2003.
The body was stuffed into a 55-gallon container.
Fagone testified last week that the two had knocked Timothy Schuster out with chloroform and a stun gun, and that Larissa Schuster had poured gallons of hydrochloric acid over her husband.
Fagone was convicted of murder by a Fresno County Superior Court jury but acquitted of a kidnapping charge. He faces a possible sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
He had worked at Larissa Schuster’s lab in Fresno in late 2001 and most of 2002. He said he quit after Schuster became controlling and manipulative.
