Wendi Elizabeth Andriano (née Ochoa; born August 6, 1970)[1] is an American female prisoner on death row in Arizona.
By that time, Wendi had given birth to two children and was working as an apartment manager, but she began to resent her increased responsibilities.
[3] During the early morning hours of October 8, 2000, Wendi Andriano bludgeoned her 33-year-old husband Joe to death with a bar stool and stabbed him in the neck with a 13-inch knife in the couple's apartment in Ahwatukee, Arizona.
[4] Approximately one hour before Joe's murder, his wife Wendi had called 911 at the behest of a co-worker, claiming that her terminally ill husband was dying.
In addition, prosecutors alleged that she was tempted by a potentially large yield from a medical malpractice lawsuit filed against Joe's doctors.
They attempted to prove that Wendi used a pesticide, sodium azide, to poison her husband to appear as if Joe's death was the result of a heart attack.
[5] Wendi Andriano filed a post-conviction appeal in 2007, claiming that evidence of her affairs and efforts to buy life insurance policies for her ailing husband unfairly prejudiced her in front of the jury.
For this, her appeals attorneys claimed prosecutor Juan Martinez's emphasis on her affairs ignited female stereotypes and called it "prosecutorial misconduct.