Carmine Bruno murder: Wife seen taking cake for tenant she was having an affair with after he had killed her husband
Mary Bruno and her husband Carmine seemed to have lived the fairy-tale life. They had met by chance in Las Vegas, where she was working as a ticket writer at a casino and he was working at a nuclear test site, in 1984 and tied the knot after just two days. Despite the 18-year age gap, everything seemed to have worked out for the couple. They lived in Las Vegas for the better part of two decades before buying a beautiful home in Wilmington, North Carolina, and moving out east to enjoy their retirement.
So, it came as a rude shock when, on the night of January 7, 2010, he was discovered dead at their home, the victim of a brutal homicide.
Investigators had found the 68-year-old's body wrapped in sheets and shower curtains, and his head in a black garbage bag. The murder weapon, a bloody aluminum baseball bat, was found nearby. They also found bloodstains on the living room wall and wine glasses in the kitchen, and bone fragments behind the couch. A subsequent autopsy determined that Carmine had been struck in the head at least 15 times, which all but confirmed to authorities that the crime had a personal motive behind it. It didn't take them long to arrest the man responsible either.
When questioned, Mary said she had witnessed her husband's murder and that it had been at the hands of Dennis Benjamin Roy, a 55-year-old who worked at a nearby gas station, and who had been leasing a spare bedroom in their house for $400 a month. She said they had never had problems with Roy until the night of the murder, when he walked out of his bedroom and attacked Carmine as he was sleeping on the couch. "Dennis walks out and he looks at me and he goes, 'I can't take it anymore,' and he comes over here with the baseball bat and he goes BAM," she told investigators in an interview tape obtained by Oxygen. "Dennis just kept beating and beating, and I was like, 'Stop it, Dennis! Stop, you're gonna kill him!'"
She claimed she did not know what made Roy snap and that, after the murder, he made her stay in the bedroom while he cleaned the crime scene. Detectives found Roy at the gas station, and after initially denying responsibility, he admitted to beating Carmine to death because he was verbally abusive to him and Mary. He said he attacked after the 68-year-old threatened him and started choking him. "It was basically the rage built up in me, and I went out there with a bat," he said. "I don’t know what I thought I was gonna do. I was gonna basically break his legs. And then when I saw him, then I hit him, you know, and then I hit him a couple more times."
However, the autopsy had also revealed that, by the time Mary reported her husband had been murdered, he had already been dead for two days. Questioned about the discrepancy, she claimed Roy had drugged her and rendered her incoherent. But several other inconsistencies led detectives to believe they did not have the entire story as well. They learned from Carmine's children that the couple's marriage had been falling apart for the longest time and that they regularly argued and fought. Carmine had reportedly been planning to leave his wife of 26 years around the time of his death.
After talking to witnesses at the gas station where Roy worked, they also learned that they had seen him regularly socializing with Mary. Video surveillance showed her bringing him cake just days after the murder. Mary eventually confessed she had told Roy she wished "he’d just drop dead and leave me alone," and was charged with accessory after the fact to first-degree murder. In the lead up to Roy's trial for first-degree murder, it became apparent that her role in her husband's death was more significant than she had let on. A letter they found inside his wallet indicated he asked for her permission before killing Carmine. "I have the bat out on my bed. I came so close to using it on that foul-mouthed bastard. OK. If I hear f**k one more time give me the OK. I will kill him. Say yes now," the letter read.
After taking the stand in his own defense, he revealed he had been having an affair with Mary for several months and that she had suggested several times she wanted Carmine dead because she no longer wanted him in charge of their money considering their impending divorce. He said she suggested that they make her husband's death look like he had been mugged in the park, and that on the day of the murder, he waited for her to give him the go-ahead before attacking Carmine. Roy was found guilty of first-degree murder by the jury and sentenced to life in prison. For her role in the killing, Mary pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to first-degree murder in June 2012 and given a sentence of 92 to 120 months in prison. She was released last year after serving seven years and now lives with her brother.
Mary's story premiered on an episode of Oxygen's 'Snapped' last week. The show airs Sundays at 6/5c on the network.