John Jefferson
Steven Edward Riley Jr. and Ina Thea Kenoyer (Steven Edward Riley/Facebook)
A 48-year-old woman in North Dakota will spend more than two decades behind bars for killing her boyfriend, poisoning his sweet tea with antifreeze in hopes of getting her hands on a multimillion dollar inheritance that did not actually exist.
Ward County District Court Judge Richard L. Hagar on Wednesday ordered Ina Thea Kenoyer to serve a sentence of 25 years in a state correctional facility for the 2023 slaying of 51-year-old Steven Edward Riley Jr., court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
The sentence followed a an agreement reached between Kenoyer and prosecutors in which she pleaded guilty to one count of intentional murder. In addition to the prison term, Kenoyer was also handed a 25-year suspended sentence and 10 years of probation following her release.
During Wednesday’s proceedings, the victim’s sister was one of several family members to read a victim impact statement.
“You stole more than a human life. You stole a son from his mother and stepfather,” Riley’s sister, Stephanie Gonzalez, said, according to a report from local NBC and Fox affiliate KMOT. “You stole a father from five sons, a brother from two sisters, an uncle from 12 nieces and nephews, and a great uncle to eight, and many friends. How does it feel to have taken so much for absolutely nothing?”
Kenoyer reportedly declined to speak on her own behalf.
As previously reported, the investigation into Kenoyer began on Sept. 3, 2023, when Riley was transported to Trinity Hospital, which is about 100 miles north of Bismarck, North Dakota. Due to the severity of his condition, Riley was airlifted to CHI Alexius Hospital in Bismarck. He died on Sept. 5.
A subsequent autopsy determined that Riley’s manner of death was homicide and the cause of death was ethylene glycol poisoning, authorities said.
About two months after Riley’s death, police on Oct. 30, 2023, placed Kenoyer under arrest, stating that she had “financial motives to murder Riley.”
“This case was extremely complex,” Investigations Commander Capt. Dale Plessas said in a statement following the arrest. “Thank you to everyone who provided us with information that helped our investigators piece this together.”
According to a report from the Minot Daily News, in the aftermath of Riley’s death, friends and family members came forward and told investigators that Kenoyer had previously made comments about poisoning her longtime boyfriend with antifreeze. They also reportedly noted that Kenoyer suddenly began claiming that Riley had been poisoned by someone while he was at the hospital being treated.
The motive for the murder was a scam about a $30 million inheritance that had been left to Riley by a distant relative which duped both him and Kenoyer, Bismarck CBS affiliate KXMB reported.
After learning about the “inheritance,” Riley reportedly began telling friends that he planned to leave Kenoyer and split the money between him and his sons.
When speaking to police, Kenoyer said she was aware of the inheritance, explaining that she would be entitled to a portion of it because she was Riley’s common-law wife at the time of his death. When detectives informed her that the state of North Dakota did not recognize common-law marriages, she became visibly upset, per the Minot Daily News.
While executing a search warrant on the couple’s home, police reportedly recovered a glass beer mug and a plastic beer from the garage, both of which tested positive for antifreeze.
She eventually admitted that she put antifreeze in a mug of Riley’s sweet tea with the intention of killing him.
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