Cynthia Sommer, 33, who currently resides in West Palm Beach, Fla., told an emergency worker that she had kidded with her husband about his $250,000 military life insurance policy, but added that she "never thought (she) would actually see it," Deputy District Attorney Laura Gunn told a jury in opening statements.
Cynthia Sommer has pleaded not guilty to charges that she murdered her husband for financial gain. She was extradited last March to California from Florida and faces life in prison if she is convicted.
According to Gunn, Sommer stayed out late with friends, paid $5,400 to have her breasts enlarged and quickly found a new boyfriend after her husband, Todd, 23, collapsed and died at their home in February 2002.
His death was initially ruled a heart attack. Tests of his liver later found levels of arsenic 1,020 times above normal.
Her defense attorney, Robert Udell, said her seemingly carefree behavior was consistent with a woman who had lost an ideal partner.
"The crash, the fall, is exactly consistent with someone who lost the love of their life," Udell said.
In his opening statements in Superior court, Udell said love letters between the couple showed that Cynthia believed Todd was her "knight in shining armor" when she met him after her first marriage failed, leaving her with three small children he seemed glad to care for as his own.
The pair married in 1999 and had another child.
"This was a godsend -- he was the man of her dreams," Udell said.
Gunn said the Sommers were financially strapped and living well beyond their means at the time of Todd Sommer's death.
Witnesses called by the prosecution in hearings last summer described Cynthia Sommer as a spendthrift who drained her husband's small trust fund and had to ask his parents for financial help buying a new car
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