Craig Wallace Rideout informations

Craig Wallace Rideout 50 years old Born and raised in Rochester, New York Family: Wife, Laura Asam, and 7 children. Craig and Laura met at a pub a few years after he graduated from college with a degree in economics. They married in January 1993 when he was 27 and she was 22 years old.

The Blossoming Years: Early Family Life and Financial Struggles

The couple’s first child was born in October of that same year and was named Colin. Craig worked as a programmer at a financial services company, described as a calm, good-humored, smiling man, and a dedicated father. After getting married, the couple bought a large four-bedroom house and began to lead a comfortable life. However, as more children came into the picture, they started to face financial difficulties.

Despite Craig warning Laura about their financial situation and urging her to manage the family’s expenses, Laura never believed they were in any financial trouble. She believed that Craig was hiding money and continued to maintain the same lifestyle, spending money recklessly. This eventually led Craig to declare bankruptcy, and the family was forced to move to a more modest house.

Family Ties Strained: Unraveling Relationships and Divorce

From the beginning of their marriage, the couple faced various problems and arguments, primarily due to financial reasons, but they also had other issues. For instance, Laura didn’t get along with Craig’s family, and on several occasions, she and some of the children didn’t attend his family’s festive dinners.

Over the years, their relationship deteriorated, and the arguments escalated. By the end of the summer of 2014, Laura requested a divorce. Of the 7 children, only 2 were still children. Laura and Craig went to court to decide who would have custody of them, and Craig was awarded custody. Laura was unhappy with this but complied with the court’s order. Consequently, the children lived with Craig and spent weekends with Laura.

Betrayal and New Beginnings: Laura’s Relationship with Paul Tucci

Shortly after the divorce, Craig discovered that Laura was in a new relationship with his longtime best friend, Paul Tucci, whose wife had recently passed away. Craig was initially upset by this but later accepted it and told his friend that he was okay with it and wished them happiness.

In public, Craig tried to pretend everything was fine, but he confided in his sister, Robbyn, with whom he was very close. According to her, Craig constantly vented about how unhappy he was due to the divorce and the ongoing disputes with Laura, both concerning the children and the ongoing divorce proceedings. This situation also strained his relationship with the older children, who typically sided with their mother.

The Move to North Carolina: Disputes over Custody

In the early summer of 2016, Laura and Paul planned to move to North Carolina and wanted to take the younger children with them. Craig opposed this because he had custody of the children and didn’t want them to be far away from him. On July 19, 2016, Laura and Paul had already packed a moving van. Days before, they had signed a rental contract for an apartment in North Carolina.

That night, Robbyn, Craig’s sister, and Craig had a phone conversation around 7:00 PM. Before ending the call, Robbyn said she would contact him again the next day. The next morning, Robbyn tried to call and email Craig but received no response.

The Chilling Discovery: A Body Disfigured by Acid

Worried, Robbyn drove to his house at lunchtime. Upon arrival, she found Laura, his ex-wife, in the kitchen cleaning a countertop. Laura told Robbyn that she had gone to the house that morning because the children had called her, saying their father wasn’t at home. She went to pick them up, as they were still young and couldn’t be home alone. She also mentioned that the kitchen smelled bad and decided to clean it since she didn’t know where Craig was.

When Robbyn looked for Craig inside the house, she saw three pairs of his shoes neatly lined up near the front staircase, indicating he hadn’t left. She attempted to enter her brother’s room to see if he was there, but the door was locked, which was unusual. She called out, but no one answered. She then called the police. Robbyn wanted the officers to force entry into Craig’s locked room, but they refused, citing the need for a warrant.

The police left, obtained a warrant, and returned to the house the same day. When they forcibly entered Craig’s locked room, they found no sign of him or any wrongdoing inside. Searching the rest of the house, the police saw that it appeared to be in order. At that point, they didn’t believe that anything serious had occurred until they decided to check the basement.

There, they discovered several stacked boxes and decided to examine them. When they moved the boxes, they found multiple bloodstains on the floor, walls, and boxes, and the blood was later identified as Craig’s. This strongly indicated that a crime had taken place on the premises, and the body had been moved afterward.

That same day, about 80 kilometers south of Craig’s house, a farmer was returning from work on his bicycle when he spotted a shovel by the side of the road in a wooded area. Suspicious, he followed a path of trampled grass into the forest and found a brown tarp from which a human foot protruded. He immediately called the police.

Upon arriving at the scene, the police confirmed that there was indeed a man’s body beneath the tarp. However, they couldn’t identify the victim immediately because the man’s face was completely disfigured by acid. After DNA analysis, it was confirmed that the man was Craig. He had several injuries on his body, indicating that a struggle had occurred. There were signs of strangulation, and various head traumas were identified as the cause of his death.

On the same day, the police received a tip from a man who claimed to have seen two young men dumping trash bags into a river at a city park. The police rushed to the location and found Colin and Alex, Craig and Laura’s two oldest children, aged 21 and 18, respectively. When questioned, they claimed they didn’t know the contents of the bags and had been instructed by their mother, Laura, to dispose of them.

The police retrieved the bags from the river, and inside, they found bloodstained clothes, shoes, gloves, and empty bottles of cleaning products. The blood matched Craig’s, and the clothes and shoes belonged to Laura, Colin, and Alex. This immediately made them the primary suspects in the crime, and they were taken in for questioning.

Alex was the first to confess to the crime. According to him, his mother had planned to kill his father to get rid of him and take the younger children to North Carolina. He claimed he hadn’t participated in the murder but had helped dispose of the body and the trash bags. He accused Laura and Colin of committing the murder.

From there, each of them began to blame the others, both for the idea and execution of the crime. Colin also claimed it was his mother but with the help of her boyfriend, Paul, while Laura said that Colin was the one responsible. Paul was also arrested due to the accusations made by Alex, Colin, and Laura.

Investigators believe that the murderers likely didn’t expect a struggle or a significant loss of blood when they attacked Craig. They had likely planned for a “clean” crime, probably involving strangulation. However, things went wrong when Craig’s carotid artery ruptured, causing significant blood loss, in addition to the head injuries that contributed to his demise.

In July 2017, the trial of the four accused took place. The prosecution presented the following timeline of events on the day of the crime:

On the night of July 19, Laura and Colin went to Craig’s house to discuss taking the children to North Carolina once more. After putting the children to bed, they lured Craig into the basement, possibly suggesting that they speak there to avoid waking the kids. In the basement, someone struck Craig in the face with a hammer or iron object, and a homemade ligature made from adhesive tape was applied around his throat, breaking the small bones in his neck and creating a hole.

Afterward, they called Alex to help them dispose of the body. They wrapped Craig in a tarp, placed him in a car, and transported him to the nearby woods. There, they poured a corrosive mixture of cleaning products on his face to disfigure it and prevent easy identification.

Investigators also found evidence that the crime had been premeditated. A week before the crime, supermarket surveillance footage showed Laura and Paul buying the tarp and cleaning products used in the crime. In other images, Colin and his fiancée were seen buying the shovel found at the crime scene.

The prosecution’s version of events was accepted, and the jury found Laura and Colin guilty of second-degree murder. They were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. Alex was convicted of tampering with evidence and received a sentence of 2 to 8 years in prison. Paul was acquitted due to a lack of evidence.

As horrific as the fate of her brother was, Robbyn knows that it would have been worse if his body had not been found. She now looks back on the good times she shared with Craig and takes comfort in the fact that the guilty parties are behind bars.