Jury finds Orange County woman guilty in murder-for-hire plot

Tuesday November 26, 2002

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) A woman was convicted of participating in a murder-for-hire plot that left a doctor and his wife dead on a rural highway.

The jury found Adriana Vasco guilty Monday of one count of first-degree murder in the death of Carolyn Oppy-Stahl, 44, and one count of murder in the killing of Dr. Kenneth Stahl, 57.

The jury also found Vasco guilty of the special circumstances of lying in wait and multiple murder, which means she could face life in prison without parole when she is sentenced in January. The jury rejected a third special circumstance of murder for financial gain.

The Huntington Beach couple were shot to death Nov. 20, 1999, on a rural Orange County highway.

Prosecutors said Vasco, of Anaheim, had carried on an affair with Stahl and that together they came up with the plan kill his wife rather than face a bitter divorce battle.

Prosecutors said Vasco, 35, recruited Dennis Godley to kill Oppy-Stahl in exchange for $30,000.

But Godley, who also has been charged with murder, killed Oppy-Stahl and then turned the gun on Stahl.

But during the trial, Vasco insisted that she was manipulated into helping the doctor arrange his wife's murder and never actually believed it would occur.

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)