[1] He was convicted in 1996 of murdering his third wife, Roberta Mowery Amos, and was the subject of a 2006 Lifetime Network made-for-TV movie called Black Widower.

In December 1994, Lowell and Roberta Amos attended a company executive party at the Atheneum Hotel in Detroit.

Crabtree and another hotel guest named Daniel Porcasi went to the room, and Lowell told them that Roberta had died in an accident.

Lowell said he needed to clean up before calling police, and he asked Porcasi to take his sport coat for him.

Police lacked enough concrete evidence to bring charges against Lowell, so they began surveillance and investigated his background.

After the story of Roberta's death had gained publicity, several women came forward and told investigators that they thought they had been drugged by Lowell before having sex.

Lowell's statement to police at that time was that Saundra had mixed wine with a sedative, collapsed, and hit her head.

The wine glass that Lowell claimed to have brought Carolyn was not in the bathroom, but was found rinsed clean and in the dishwasher.

Due to a 1994 change in Michigan law, the prosecution was allowed to enter details of previous incidents into the trials.

Prosecutors also argued that although Lowell lacked a financial motive for killing Roberta, as he had for the other three deaths, his marriage was about to end.

They said that he first gave her a glass of wine with two crushed sedatives in it, then when she was passed out, he injected her vagina with the cocaine (dissolved in water), and then smothered her with the pillow when she began to convulse.