SET UP FOR MURDER

A St. Louis couple and the youngest of their three sons had stopped
at their business two days after Christmas 1997 when a masked man
pointed a sawed-off shotgun at their SUV and demanded their valuables.

Richard and Debra Abeln, both in their mid-40s, did all the right
things. They quickly complied, passing the man jewelry and cash.

Yet the robber shot Mrs. Abeln twice in the chest at point-blank
range, killing her. The gunman sped away in a four-door sedan.

The murder happened at St.Louis Downtown Airport in Cahokia, Ill.,
just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. The Abelns owned a
small aviation firm there.

"Police officers tell people to always cooperate when they find
themselves in situations like this," Sgt. Dennis Kuba of the Illinois
State Police told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "She did everything
she possibly could and answered all of his demands. For whatever
reason, he decided to shoot her anyway."

Unlikely place

It didn't make sense.

If the killer was worried about witnesses, why not shoot all three
victims? Why not shoot Mr. Abeln, much more of a threat at 6-foot-3
and 220 pounds? Why was Mrs. Abeln singled out?

The small corporate airport was an unlikely place for a random
stickup. There hadn't been a violent crime there in its history.

The local police chief dubbed the crime "strange." The airport
director called it "off the wall."

Naturally, investigators scrutinized the business and personal
relationships of the Abelns, who were high school sweethearts married
23 years. The couple lived with their sons - Ryan, 21, Chad, 15, and
Travis, 11, who witnessed the murder - in a stately brick home on a
cul-de-sac in Sappington, Mo., a nice St. Louis suburb.

In addition to CRT Aviation, the Abelns owned a 100-employee trucking
firm, Jeffco Leasing.

By asking around, police learned that Richard Abeln was a serial
philanderer. At the time of his wife's murder, he was cheating on her
- - and cheating on his mistress with a third woman. Mrs. Abeln
apparently knew of the affairs and was aware her marriage was in trouble.

Detectives also discovered that Richard Abeln had a curiously close
relationship with another businessman, Guy Westmoreland, 35, who
operated a gas station near Jeffco headquarters.

Phone records showed that Abeln and Westmoreland exchanged 36 calls
in the last nine days of December, including 10 on Dec. 26, the day
before Mrs. Abeln was killed.

Westmoreland's phone records also showed 155 calls over the previous
few months with a resident of Edinburg, Tex., not far from the
Mexican border. Texas authorities suggested a drug-smuggling link.

With a list of questions about Abeln's affairs, the state of his
marriage and his ties to Westmoreland and narcotics, police invited
the widower in for questioning on Jan. 4. He agreed to a lie-detector
test, which he failed miserably.

Detectives and prosecutors pressed him to come clean, and Abeln
gradually broke down over 18 hours of questioning.

He admitted that he and Westmoreland had become partners in a drug
scheme. Westmoreland had the south Texas connections, and Abeln
provided the airplanes. It was a rinky-dink operation - a few kilos.
Four times they flew to Texas to buy Mexican cocaine for $16,000 a
kilo. Westmoreland would break it up into ounces that sold for a
total of $32,000, doubling their money.

Abeln explained to detectives that his marriage had gone stale and he
wanted a divorce. But he feared that parting with half his $1.2
million estate would spell financial doom for his trucking company.
So he lied and told Westmoreland that his wife had discovered the
drug scheme and was threatening to go to police.

Westmoreland made the arrangements for a $5,000 hit, carried out by
DeAndre Lewis, 21, a pump jockey at his gas station.

Ten days after the murder, Abeln, Westmoreland and Lewis were charged
with federal crimes because Debra Abeln had been driven from Missouri
to Illinois to be set up for the murder.

"It's horrible enough for a guy to have this done to his wife," said
Illinois police official Patrick Delaney. "But in front of your
11-year-old son? It's just going to scar him for life."

Compelling case

Westmoreland was charged with drug conspiracy, not murder. But at his
trial prosecutors built a compelling case that Mrs.Abeln was killed
to protect the narcotics scheme.

He was convicted and sentenced to the maximum penalty: life in
prison. Now 43, he resides at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.

DeAndre Lewis, the young triggerman, pleaded guilty to murder,
avoiding a possible death sentence or life without possibility of
parole. Now 28, he is doing time at the federal prison in Pekin, Ill.
His scheduled release date is in 2033, when he would be 56 years old.

Richard Abeln, charged with murder conspiracy, was a whipped man
after his arrest. He knew his life was over.

Testifying at Westmoreland's trial, Abeln's eldest son, Ryan, quoted
his father as telling him, "I'm sorry I ruined your lives. Please
take care of the kids. I'll give you what we've got left, so you guys
can make it."

He transferred his assets to his sons, asked for a court-appointed
lawyer and eventually pleaded guilty. He was spared a death sentence
and got life without parole - a sentence that would prove irrelevant.

Abeln was unable to overcome his guilt.

In September 1998, he narrowly survived a suicide attempt after
slashing his wrists and groin with a razor blade at a county jail in Illinois.

He tried again and again to kill himself over the next few years,
leaving several self-pitying notes.

On Dec. 29, 2002, five years and two days after his wife's murder, he
tried suicide again. He twisted his prison uniform into a noose and
hanged himself from the bars in his cell at the federal penitentiary
in Pollock, La. It finally worked.