2/2/2008
Todd Sommer has a face
Wife of poisoned Marine wants evidence excluded in retrial
Well of course she does.
SAN DIEGO – A woman convicted of fatally poisoning her Marine husband but granted a retrial will ask that all evidence relating to arsenic and her sexual behavior following his death be excluded, her attorney said Friday.
Cynthia Sommer, 34, was convicted a year ago of first-degree murder for the Feb. 18, 2002, death of Sgt. Todd Sommer, 23, at Miramar.
That’s because while he was getting sick…she was at the doctor’s office getting sized up for a boob job. After his death, she asked about money 4 times in the firs 5 hours. She was like ‘girls gone wild’…throwing money around and having sex with different partners. This is just about as bad as the behavior of Scott Peterson when he wanted to sell his wife, Laci Peterson’s car and the house before they’d even found out what happened to her.
We should never forget that Todd Sommer has a face and didn’t deserve to die.
This is a sad story, a strange story…of a woman who appears to have murdered her 23-year-old marine Sergeant husband with arsenic, for the insurance money.
February 2nd, 2008 at 7:57 pm
This is a sad story, a strange story…of a woman who appears to have murdered her 23-year-old marine Sergeant husband with arsenic, for the insurance money.
Except that there is no evidence of that. They cannot connect her to any arsenic, and the autopsy results are inconsistent with the accusation.
As for Scott Peterson, why shouldn’t he believe that something very bad had happened to Laci? Why would he want to stay in a city voted as the worst in the USA, where a major crime happened right across the street from his home on the same day that his wife was abducted? I’d be getting my family out of there too. It’s not like anyone suggested something good might have happened to her.
Once again we see people condemned on the basis of alleged bad behavior, behavior far less immoral than many congressmen and presidents have indulged in. This is Oprah ‘logic’.
February 2nd, 2008 at 8:20 pm
You forget that she was already convicted of this by a jury of her peers…and they thought there WAS. Now that she’s fenagled another trial, it will be interesting to see what kind of legal maneuvering they’re able to come up with in order to deny the fact that she was partying like crazy on the insurance money, and had the boob job and another guy shortly after Todd’s death. A boob job that she would never have been able to afford if she hadn’t have gotten that insurance money. That money was important.
They had student loans in default, borrowed money from their parents, and in just two years of marriage, they had used up Todd Sommer’s entire trust fund account.
“They had drained the entire fund to a balance of zero,” Gunn said. “The balance of zero happened … eight days before Todd Sommer got sick.”
On Feb. 8 — 10 days before her husband’s death — Cynthia Sommer visited a plastic surgeon in La Jolla and had a “before” photo taken in preparation for breast augmentation, Gunn said. She was quoted $5,400 for the surgery. At the time they only had $280 in the bank.
How did she plan to pay for it? It wasn’t in the budget - they were overspending as it was.
You forget the arsenic in the tissues finding…but that of course is some of what’s being disputed. Fact is, his symptoms were classic arsenic poisoning.
It’s too bad she was so crafty as to flim flam people into having his body cremated. They can’t go back and re-do those samples.
Fact is, he didn’t. He’d been having an affair - and it wasn’t until police told Amber that he was a suspect in his pregnant wife’s disappearance that she learned the truth. Plus-He was traveling with his brother’s i.d.’s and a serious load of cash, heading for the Mexican border.
You’re right. That’s why he should dye his hair, try to sell the house that he and Laci had together, and even her car - before they found out what happened to her…and tried to leave the country with his brother’s-not his- identification on him.
February 2nd, 2008 at 11:48 pm
You forget that she was already convicted of this by a jury of her peers
That’s like saying G W Bush is a great president because 82% of the public once thought he was. A number of people (now in the hundreds) have been released from prison based on actual evidence, yet every one of the jurors who convicted them believed they were guilty. So much for the jury.
As for what Scott did or said, I don’t care. It isn’t evidence of anything except media persecution. Look at what has happened to those, like Britney Spears, who wanted the attention. What happens to those who don’t seek it, but are hated despite innocence? You’ve swallowed all of the old nonsense, none of which is actual evidence of a crime. Look at some real facts, facts with actual relevance to what happened to Laci:
• A visibly pregnant woman vanishes from her home. No signs of a crime can be found - anywhere - ever.
• Her shoes are found abandoned on the side of the street, 170 feet from her house.
• Seven days after she vanishes, her watch is pawned in Modesto.
• Another woman is found with Laci’s Social Security card.
• Some time after that Laci’s earrings are sold at an auction sale in Oakland.
• The California Highway Patrol receives a tip that a pregnant woman is being held captive and is being abused in Tracy (not far from Modesto).
• Her body turns up four months later, found on the shore of San Francisco Bay, a place where many other bodies have been dumped, and not far from Oakland.
• Although she consumed nothing containing caffeine while pregnant, her body contains caffeine. None is found in Conner’s body, leading to the conclusion that she consumed it after Conner was removed from her body.
• Her uterus has been cut open by someone unskilled in medical procedures.
• The fetus and the placenta are both missing.
• Some distance away, the body of her child is also found.
• He shows no signs of prematurity, he is full term and he is not curled up in the fetal position.
• The fetal cord has been crudely cut.
• A piece of twine has been double knotted around his neck, not to harm him but to keep his body wrapped in plastic bags to protect it. One of the bags is found nearby.
• The mother is wearing underwear with a wear pattern which shows she has worn it for the whole period of her abduction - which was 111 days.
• Her clothes are still on her body, something which could not happen unless they were retied after the baby was removed. It also shows she was in the water for a day or two at most.
• Her uterus is two to three weeks post partum, showing that she lived at least that long after the baby was removed from her body.
• Although the body of the mother is simply discarded in the sea, either from the Albany Bulb or more likely from Point Isabel (it has been suggested in the Hoffman channel), the body of the baby is carefully laid on the shore at Point Isabel so it can be found and buried. This is clearly the work of someone who cared for the baby.
What part of this does NOT look like a failed fetus napping, where both mother and child have died?
Why would any man cut his own son out of his wife’s living body? Where and when did he do it? Where did he keep Laci all of that time? When has this ever happened before in the history of the world?
February 3rd, 2008 at 6:13 am
I’ll see if I have time to read that lengthy diatribe later.
I never saw the photographs of Laci’s headless armless torso or the fetus…but it must have been compelling to the jury–and Scott never even looked at them when that evidence was presented.
Wouldn’t even a tough guy like Scott -cry-if he didn’t do it - with his wife and son’s bodies on screen like that?
This guy had no remorse, had no feelings and wanted to continue his life with Amber Frey at some point - that’s what the phone calls indicate.
You don’t always need buttoned up evidence for a conviction - they just need to prove the case ‘beyond a shadow of a doubt’.
The same thing goes for Cynthia Sommer. Circumstantial evidence and motive are enough to convict.
For me, it was his lie about the concrete anchors in the driveway (the concrete in the driveway wasn’t consistent with the concrete of the anchors according to experts) - the anchors were missing, and Laci and Connor’s bodies showed up in a manner consistent with been weighted down in the Bay. AND the fact that when questioned by authorities, Scott couldn’t tell them what kind of fish he was fishing for on that mysterious ‘fishing trip’. Not to mention his dying his hair, running around with his brother’s ID and a bundle of cash, having tried to sell her car and their house when they didn’t know what had happened to her yet. He was laughing and smiling at a candlelight vigil, again inconsistent with what people would expect from a worried husband. This is the behavior of a guilty - not innocent -man.
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:10 am
Cao , disregard this twerp, he’s obsessed with the Peterson case , and is another liberal bleeding heart..always for the criminal, never the victim.
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:19 am
Voice of Insanity, you are flat out naive to spout all you “feel sorry for the perp” “what if” fantasy”!!!
Quote from article during first trial:
“Bloom said he will also move to exclude all evidence concerning his client’s behavior after her husband’s death.”
“Deddeh originally excluded evidence that following her husband’s death, she had sex with numerous Marines and participated in a wet T-shirt and thong contest in Tijuana, but allowed it after her mother testified that her daughter behaved like a grieving widow.”
Some grieving widow eh? A jury saw through her defense the first time and found her guilty, they will do it again. Just because she didn’t have the guts to take a gun and shoot him, doesn’t mean she didn’t scheme to kill him and pull it off! You obviously have never had a close family member murdered or you wouldn’t be so Pro Crime.
April 19th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Well, she’s free now.
http://truthinjustice.org/cynthia-sommer.htm
April 19th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Sickening.
April 20th, 2008 at 1:31 am
Cao Says: “Sickening”
Yes, you are. Anyone who ignores actual evidence and instead judges another based on hatred is despicable. Consider that it was the PROSECUTION who dropped the case when it became clear they had NO evidence of guilt.
April 20th, 2008 at 6:00 am
Use your brain. If you think I am sickening, then don’t come here. What I find sickening are trolls that roam the internet with the expressed purpose of insulting people that don’t agree with them.
There is no proof as to what this evidence is. What tissue did they use? Todd’s body was cremated in a real big hurry. That is suspicious–and it’s also suspicious that they would send ‘the tissue’ to CANADA to be evaluated. You mean to tell me there are no labs in the US that could have been used? What is the CANADA connection here?
It really stinks out loud.
What is the point of having a jury trial for something like this if a judge can just overturn it with fishy ‘new evidence’?
There is and was enough evidence for a jury to convict her- with her getting an assessment for a boob job -the very day that Todd got sick–when they didn’t have the money for it.
And then her going ahead with the augmentation soon afterwards, and then ‘greiving’ with multiple sex partners, and burning through the insurance proceeds.
What is sickening are all the people who are willing to go to bat for murderers and forget the victims’ families and those that loved them. This is a representation of people who’ve taken leave of their common sense; that is - if they had any to begin with.
It should be interesting to see what she does now and in the years that follow, and if any of that hits the airwaves.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:33 pm
“Rather than going into seclusion, she got her breasts enlarged and, witnesses said, joined wet T-shirt contests at nightclubs and had casual sex with other military men”.
I’ve seen weirder than that. Example: When Pamela Anderson dumped Tommy Lee she had her breast implants removed. Then a few weeks later she had bigger ones put in. And she was just dumping a loser!
Point me to the book which describes in detail the exact way everyone must behave under every circumstance.
Here are two questions:
(1) Is it possible for a woman to get breast implants WITHOUT killing her husband?
(2) Is it possible for a woman to NOT get breast implants but to STILL kill her husband?
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:26 am
Sure, if her husband’s still alive, but since Todd is dead, that’s a rather dumb question.
It would seemed likely she planned his untimely demise when 1) they had no money 2) they were spending more than they were taking in and 3) they had gone through his trust fund and 4) he had started to get sick on the day that she went for the assessment with the doctor and 5) after he died, she was more concerned about the money than anything else and 6) after he died, she went ahead with her plan and 7) even entered wet t-shirt contests.
A rather bizarre way for a grieving widow to behave, right? The jury thought so.
She admitted that she didn’t see a future with Todd…and it doesn’t seem as though divorce was in her vocabulary.
Pretty cut and dried.
Sure, if she had motive. And that’s the whole crux of this situation; she had motive, her behavior tells the story, and the jury convicted her. Just like Scott Peterson. And so the lawyers moved for a retrial striking the testimony of the men she screwed and how she went through the money like **** through a goose without planning for her future or that of her children. She was a gold digger.
Is it possible that the tissue that was sent to Canada was not Todd’s?
What does a Canadian lab have to do with this?
Does this case set a legal precedent for admitting “new” and/or manufactured evidence after a jury conviction in order to cast a reasonable doubt to get the charges dismissed?
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:14 am
OJ has been interesting to watch all these years…yet…he hasn’t killed anyone else… almost, but he hasn’t
Are the cases the same…No…OJ murdered out of passion and it was non meditated. This young lady premeditated this one.
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Have you not listened to ANY of the news? Todd Sommer was not murdered.
Cynthia did not murder him.
The prosecutor withheld evidence that they knew about for more than five years.
Who cares what she did after he died. She did not kill him.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Because they are propagandists and lie to us. That sad fact has been revealed so many times-in so many different instances- that I’m surprised that you still believe what they tell you.
I can’t believe someone would come here with that stupid a statement.
April 25th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
I want to tell Todd’s family, and Todd himself, how sorry I am that his psycho wife got away with murder. Conflicting medical reports DO NOT PROVE innocence. How did she simultaneously perform CPR on Todd and talk on the phone to 911 at the same time? It can’t be done. The day Todd got sick, and while they were flat broke, she’s in a plastic surgeon’s office discussing breast implants? Yeah, that’s exactly where I’d be if my husband and I were broke, and I knew he was incredibly ill. NOT!! She claimed Todd was her prince charming, yet in an email she sent to her boyfriend she had after Todd’s murder, she claimed that he (the new boyfriend) was her prince charming, and Todd never was. She’s not innocent. She’s a cold hearted lying manipulator who covered her tracks very well. If my husband was on the floor, dying, I sure as hell wouldn’t be asking the paramedics if I was going to get his life insurance soon. She’s guilty as sin. But just like OJ, she got away with it.
If she was so innocent, no arsenic would have ever shown up the first time his tissue samples were tested. My heart goes out to his young son and his family. I sure as hell hope that black widow doesn’t get Todd’s son. I pray Todd’s parents will be able to raise him instead.
April 26th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
It is the times when the justice dispensed by imperfect mankind I find comfort in my faith. I think it is quite obvious Cynthia has got away with murder for her personal gain, just as OJ did. But one thing I do know, they cannot hide their evil from God. God knows the truth and in the end they will pay for eternity. And somehow, I don’t think OJ has been loving life much since he got the “not guilty” verdict, and I doubt that Cynthia will be enjoying herself much now. Too many people she will encounter daily are going to doubt her innocence. What goes around comes back around.
April 26th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Those of you who are attacking this clearly innocent woman should remember that you will spend eternity burning in hell - and I have already applied for the job of chief stoker.
April 27th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Voice of Insanity, unless you are the Son/Daughter of God, I’m not too worried about your judgement. All who break the laws of God without repentance, will answer to God. Period. I will fling no insults here, but I have little respect for opinions you posted here.
April 27th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
LOL…innocent my ***. I agree, HAM.
OJ was “innocent”, too.
April 29th, 2008 at 9:19 am
I can’t believe that there are people out there who feel sorry for this woman. Nobody should disrespect his or her dead spouse the way she did. I feel sorry for Todd. He probably did not know what he was getting into by marrying her. That is the only way to explain how could a great guy like Todd marry someone so ugly inside and outside like Cynthia. When I first saw her she already seemed way off. Unfortunately, the military is full of perverts like Cynthia and all her marine lovers. Thanks God my husband is one of the decent ones.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I read somewhere that they had gone through his trust fund!!!
May 17th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
“There is no proof as to what this evidence is. What tissue did they use? Todd’s body was cremated in a real big hurry. That is suspicious–and it’s also suspicious that they would send ‘the tissue’ to CANADA to be evaluated. You mean to tell me there are no labs in the US that could have been used? What is the CANADA connection here?”
———————
Cao, the evidence that was tested this last time was samples from the organs from Todd’s body. They were taken at autopsy, the same time as the ones that AFIP tested. The “Canada connection” must be with Laura Gunn because the defense had nothing to do with that. Laura Gunn herself sent these to Canada WITHOUT agreement OR knowledge from the defense.
At the time these samples were sent, Allen Bloom was out of the country and was still under the belief that these additional samples had been destroyed.
These are the ones he asked for last year and he was told by the prosecutor that they had been destroyed. Suddenly in March of this year, the prosecutor “found” these tissues at Balboa Naval hospital where they have been stored for the last six years. On the box that they were in, there was a document, signed by Laura Gunn herself stating that she had reviewed ALL contents of this box. There are still samples left that have not been tested. If they thought for one second that the latest results were not accurate they could and would send more off for testing.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Go to your normal source of information on this case and read about it all. All the major networks have covered it. Channel 8 in San Diego even has video of the box of samples with Laura Gunn’s signature on the box where it was setting in the same room where Todd’s autopsy was performed.
And remember, Mrs. Sommer testified that it was her suggestion that Todd be cremated, not Cindy’s.
Here is the link to Channel 8’s Sommer info
http://www.cbs8.com/search/
Here is the link to the tissue info:
http://www.cbs8.com/features/special_assignment/story.php?id=125967
Here is the video where you can see the actual samples themselves:
http://www.cbs8.com/features/special_assignment/story.php?id=125967#
You call us trolls and bleeding heart liberals..I for one am not a liberal, bleeding heart or otherwise.
After reading some of your blog you would be surprised to learn that I am on the same side of the political fence (mostly) as you are.
The ones of us who continue to speak out for Cindy are not only doing it for her but for all of us. What was done here in this case is a travesty and everything our constitution is against. If you feel that what the San Diego District Attorney’s office did to Todd and Cynthia Sommer in this case is okay, ask your sons how they feel about this. What was done here is some of the very things that they are fighting for. Ask them how they feel….
May 17th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
I’m not interested in your diatribe there. I decided to publish it in case any one else might want to pipe in.
Did you hear the news…?
Mike Gilbert’s book, “How I Helped O.J. Get Away With Murder: The Shocking Inside Story of Violence, Loyalty, Regret and Remorse” (Regnery Publishing, 232 pages, $27.95) is for sale.
And stupid moonbats can be misled very easily, as well.
Why don’t you go somewhere else and cry about it?
Cynthia Sommers’ behavior in the future will tell us what kind of woman she is…and if she in fact really did murder her husband.
People are using those test results as though they’re some kind of exoneration.
They’re not; they just introduced ‘reasonable doubt’.
We don’t know how that young man died…and the circumstances around his death point to his wife, regardless as to the manufactured “evidence” that set her free.
May 18th, 2008 at 1:58 am
As for OJ, the jury gave the correct verdict. Once all of the evidence is tainted by incompetence or by actual malfeasance on the part of the police — who are supposed to investigate, not to create their own evidence to convict — then no honest juror can vote guilty. Only valid evidence honestly obtained suffices to support a conviction. In the OJ case there was none.
As for the ‘manufactured evidence’ in the Todd Sommer case the only ‘manufactured evidence’ was that used to convict her. It was clearly interfered with, whether with or without malice and the incompetent chain of evidence should have resulted in it being tossed. The fact that the judge ever allowed it in to evidence speaks poorly of his honesty or legal skills. He should have known better.
May 18th, 2008 at 5:57 am
It’s really odd and even sad how you thought police fascists don’t believe I’m entitled to my opinion.
definition of liberal:
That doesn’t apply, though…the only freedom of action you allow is for people who AGREE WITH YOU.
You can’t change the record of her incriminating behavior. She did it; she got away with it. The question is - if it wasn’t arsenic, what was it? We will probably never know unless she confessed to someone.
He was already dead when she made the 9/11 call. His collapse was much earlier than what she claimed. In the call Sommer’s says that he is still breathing, the jury agreed that could not have been the case.
It still stinks, regardless as to the “newly discovered” samples and the Canadian lab test results. She clearly was not interested in saving his life, as all her behavior and her saying she didn’t see a future with him indicates.
May 18th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
She’s guilty. Nobody bothered to challenge Cyndy’s lies because there is no innocent explanation for things that are not innocent.
May 21st, 2008 at 12:25 am
It’s really odd and even sad how you thought police fascists don’t believe I’m entitled to my opinion.
definition of liberal: favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression.
That doesn’t apply, though…the only freedom of action you allow is for people who AGREE WITH YOU.
—————————————-
No, you miss the point. I disagree with those who believe in ludicrous things and can’t back them up with facts. People do much weirder things than Mrs Sommer. ‘Dog’ the Bounty Hunter learned that his daughter died in a car crash on his wedding day — and went ahead with the wedding.
Neither you nor anyone else has the knowledge or skills to judge guilt or innocence based on what you regard as unusual behavior. That’s why the courts are supposed to use facts only — although all too often that doesn’t happen in the USA and as a result far too many innocents wind up in your brutal prisons.
When a US prosecutor won’t prosecute you can take it to the bank that there is no case to answer. They are all too eager to go after anyone they think they can convict.
May 21st, 2008 at 4:26 pm
What’s ludicrous about what Cindy said on the stand?
I think you’re intentionally missing the point, LOL
May 21st, 2008 at 9:28 pm
“What’s ludicrous about what Cindy said on the stand?”
Isn’t that a question for you?
What is ludicrous is believing in ‘magic evidence’ which appears just when the prosecution needs it but turns out to not exist. Unless of course you know some magic spell which sends poison to just SOME organs in the body (and in massive amounts) but not to the rest even though the claim is that he ingested it.
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:01 am
How do we know it didn’t exist?
It seems to me that the “magic” is the samples that turned up in order to set her free…and the sleight of hand which sent those samples for testing to a lab in Canada; which presto chango came out clean.
It all stinks, but as several of us have pointed out, OJ is walking around free; so is Cindy.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:05 am
“It seems to me that the “magic” is the samples that turned up in order to set her free”
Then you are assuming that some genius has developed a magic process which can remove massive amounts of poison from numerous biological samples after death leaving no trace of it anywhere? And is keeping it secret? And used it just for this one case? You really DO believe in magic.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:45 am
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23096041/
DAVIE, Fla. - Kim Sjostrom wanted a real-life version of the film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” which played in the background as friends fixed her hair and makeup before her own marriage ceremony.
But less than an hour after she and Teddy Efkarpides were wed, Sjostrom crumpled in her husband’s arms during a Greek song that means “Love Me.”
…
During the couple’s first dance, Sjostrom complained of being lightheaded. Efkarpides thought his wife, a diabetic, needed sugar, but she collapsed.
Wedding guests, paramedics and doctors at a nearby hospital were unable to revive her.
————————————-
So did the husband kill her? Or will you blame Cynthia Sommer for this too?
May 29th, 2008 at 5:27 am
There was an explanation for that.
There is no explanation for Todd Sommer’s collapse; he didn’t die during marine corps training, or during hard physical work.
The sad fact is - he died only feet away from his heartless self-centered cold blooded murderer.
She didn’t even try to help him; she admitted on the stand that she didn’t know CPR. So why did she tell the 9/11 operator that she did? What explanation to you have for THAT?
Why was his body dead longer than it would have been if she’d been trying to resuscitate him?
The conclusion is inevitable: Because she waited until there was no question that he was dead, because his death was her goal. Those are simple facts that you can’t escape from; that’s why she kept asking within hours of his death about the insurance money and what she was going to get from the Marine Corps. It was the money that she was concerned about.
People who try to excuse his wife for all of her self incriminating behavior - similar to that of Scott Peterson - or OJ Simpson’s - are doing everyone - especially Todd, a disservice.
Why don’t you allow me my opinion, or are you my self appointed thought police?
To you, there is only one opinion that is acceptable.
Why that is, and why you people keep hounding the people who disagree with you on this post, I can’t figure out.