Man Sentenced to Life for 2016 Wife Murder After Retrial

Robert Rhodes, a 52-year-old man from Withleigh, Devon, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 29 and a half years on Friday at Inner London Crown Court for the 2016 murder of his wife, Dawn Rhodes, after manipulating their young child to help cover up the crime.

The killing occurred on June 2, 2016, in the kitchen of the family home in Redhill, Surrey. Rhodes stabbed Dawn, cutting her throat, amid the breakdown of their marriage. He had discovered her affair with a work colleague and filed for divorce months earlier. Internet searches on his phone revealed his obsession with her new relationship, including queries about hacking devices, household poisons, sedatives, and drugs capable of killing. Pathologists testified that the fatal wound was inflicted from behind, consistent with an ambush.

To conceal the murder, Rhodes involved their child, who was under 10 at the time. He instructed the child to tell Dawn to close her eyes and hold out her hands for a supposed picture, then left the room and attacked her while she stood unaware. Afterward, using the same knife, Rhodes inflicted a wound on the child's forearm and stabbed himself in the back to fabricate...