PokerChannelEurope.com

Wife of murdered Poker Player gets sentenced

Jill Rockcastle, wife of murdered poker player William Gustafik, has been found guilty of her husband’s death and sentenced in Las Vegas.

Rockcastle, 50, sobbed uncontrollably as she professed her love for Las Vegas poker professional, Gustafik, during sentencing by Clark County District Court Judge Michael Villani.

Gustafik was found with 15 stab wounds at the couple’s luxury Las Vegas condominium. His body was discovered by police in the blood splattered bedroom of the couple’s 23rd floor condo’ home. He was a former corrections officer and chiropractor who became a Las Vegas poker pro. Gustafik was known by the nickname "The Manipulator."

Joseph Abood, defence lawyer for Rockcastle, cast his client as a battered wife who grabbed a knife and stabbed Gustafik after he grabbed her by the hair. However Sam Batemen, prosecutor, said there was no evidence that Gustafik was violent towards his wife.

Several days after the killing, Rockcastle was found unconscious at a motel in California. Police believe she has taken an overdose of prescribed medication after leaving a note in her car to her children and sending confessional e-mails to her close friends.

In her suicide note, Rockcastle claimed her husband had hired a hit man to kill his ex-wife and that he was a user of cocaine and performance enhancing drugs.

She also claimed that she and Gustafik underwent cosmetic surgery and hatched a scheme to sell fake real estate to maintain their high-roller lifestyle.

"We were living this fake life of millionaires. But we weren't," she wrote. "We were going broke.”

Jill Rockcastle will serve 10 years to life in a Nevada prison for the murder of her husband.

By Paul Sandells - November 21st 2008

RSS Poker News

Top Poker Rooms