Ku Klux Klan leader Frank Ancona's wife admits to murdering him, sentenced to life
The wife of a Missouri Ku Klux Klan leader was sentenced to life on Friday after admitting that she killed her husband two years ago. Reports said that 47-year-old Malissa Ancona, the wife of KKK leader Frank Ancona Jr., had initially claimed that her son Paul Jinkerson shot her husband but then pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and other charges, along with Jinkerson.
Ancona Jr., who called himself the "imperial wizard", was shot dead in a bedroom and his body was dumped next to a river in February 2017, according to BBC.
Days before his death, he had asked his wife for a divorce, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and, according to his father, Frank Ancona Sr., that was the reason Malissa murdered him. Frank Sr. claims that Malissa was a “terrible wife” and “a piece of s**t” and that he remembers repeatedly asking his son, “Why, why do you stay with her?”
Malissa had initially reported her husband missing, after which a family fishing in southeast Missouri found his body near a river. At this point, she claimed that Jinkerson shot her husband with a 9 mm handgun, and had even agreed to testify against him. Later, however, she claimed that she was “under the influence” and couldn’t recall the exact events that happened when her husband was shot.
“I fired both shots that killed my husband,” she told Circuit Judge Wendy Wexler Horn on Friday, adding that she cleaned the walls of their bedroom and disposed of everything bloody in the room with the help of her son.
Jinkerson currently faces the same charges as her, which included, along with second-degree murder, tampering with evidence and abandonment of a corpse.
Frank Sr. who was forced to identify his only son’s body said his son had “no face left" and claimed that the true killer “admitted her guilt today.”
Malissa's plea deal could offer some concession to Jinkerson's sentencing.
Frank's tearful daughter Carolyn Ancona, told SLPD that her father did not "deserve this. No one deserves this," while his ex-wife Kellie Ancona, said Frank was “very, very kind-hearted” and “a good man” and a good father and grandfather.