They Grew Apart But He Couldn’t Move On (Meet Marry Murder with Michelle Trachtenberg) | Forensic Files

[music playing] What would you do if you found the person you married loved someone else?
I hope it's not the same as this guy. Thomas said, if I can't have her, no one will, and he killed her.
No one can have Lisa now because Thomas pulled that trigger. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: A proud serving US Navy man is
forced to face a violent truth. His father has killed his mother. He is now part of the collateral damage.
Dad did what he did. Mom did what she did. They both did bad things. But I can't really say I love one more than the other,
even after everything happened. You just can't take sides. Half of women murdered are killed by their partners.
This is "Meet Mary Murder." [theme music] MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: A cute street in Shelton, Connecticut.
In a picture book house, mom dad and four kids. Pretty dreamy, right? Wrong. CAROLYN CANVILLE: One of them hears the dog scratching
at his mom's bedroom door. BRIAN HARRIS: Scratch, scratch, scratch. Someone wants to find out what's going on.
So when he walks down the hall to the master bedroom and he opens the door-- 'Cause why does their dog want inside so badly.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: And what he sees is his mom lying on the bed, face down, blood coming out of the back of her head.
She's been shot once in the head, and she's dead. BRIAN HARRIS: A frantic 911 call was made.
It's that of a teenager reporting that he went into his mom's bedroom and he found his mom dead.
Panicked, and so the police respond. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Next to get a call is big brother, Vinnie.
VINNIE INFANTE: I couldn't find my keys, jumped in my fiance's car. I think I had shoes on but rushed over to my house.
And the whole street was lined with neighbors and police and friends of the family.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Imagine this. The family dog going crazy from the smell of blood.
So what is happening here? Why is Lisa Infante lying dead on her bed? What's the story of Lisa and Tom Infante?
Lisa Anne Swanson and Thomas J Infante Jr. got married on June 25, 1988. It was in Monroe, Connecticut, a nice neighborhood.
They were 25. The guests walking into church that day didn't have to worry about which side of the aisle to sit on.
Everybody at the wedding knew pretty much everyone else. VINNIE INFANTE: They met when they were kids.
They grew up together. They were almost like super close friends. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: As teenagers, Tom and Lisa
lived just four houses away from each other on the Monroe Turnpike. They went to high school together,
again, in the same neighborhood where they live. And they both graduated in the class of 1980.
Wow, talk about your textbook high school sweethearts. I like these guys. VINNIE INFANTE: I know my uncle Rich
and my dad were really close. And same with my aunt and my dad. Everyone is just like--
We were all a pretty close family. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Three years into their marriage baby
Vincent comes along. Then Harrison, Matt, and Kayla. A big family, right? Everyone can see that Tom and Lisa really loved their kids.
They were animal lovers, too. There were always cats and dogs in the house. It's a happy busy family home.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: Lisa and Thomas had four kids. They had one daughter and three sons.
The daughter was especially close to the father. VINNIE INFANTE: He was just a typical dad,
emotional at times. He acted pretty emotional. He would cry over songs. And we had these little chihuahuas.
He would love them, loved to hold them. He was very just an emotional guy, sensitive.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: A softy with the dogs maybe, but not when it comes to raising his kids.
Tom and Lisa were very different. VINNIE INFANTE: My mom was usually pretty laid back.
She was into yoga and never really hard going. Dad was kind of more strict about things.
Like no you can't do that. No, you can't do that kind of thing. CAROLYN CANVILLE: She was loving and giving
and you could kind of tell that in her profession. She was a nutritionist also a yoga instructor.
But she also volunteered her time as an EMS technician, emergency medical services.
So you could see the kind of personality she was and what she chose to do with her life.
VINNIE INFANTE: She was an EMT, so she really cared about people, cared about their well-being.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: In 2010, Lisa gets into yoga and qualifies as an instructor.
She quits her job and starts teaching full time. She's into something called Holy Fit,
which combines Christian devotion with exercise. And I have to say, it suits her personality to a T.
VINNIE INFANTE: She helped out the community, helped out people. She was awesome.
Me and her got along really well. We would do yoga together. She's a very caring, very compassionate,
really loved us kids, great cook. We'd always come home and she'd have something waiting for us,
like brownies or cookies or something. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Thomas, he becomes an equipment
operator for the public works department one town over in Trumbull, not sexy but study.
VINNIE INFANTE: He kept doing what he liked. He was a great guy to be around. Funny.
Like tell jokes. Good sense of humor. And then we would always hang out with dad,
like go out on car trips, go pick up a new tractor or something. So dad would always bring home stuff for me
and my brother to work on and play with, like big toys kind of thing. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: And he and his brothers and sisters
have a happy childhood. But they could hardly miss the fact that their mom and dad don't see eye to eye a lot of the time.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: All four of the kids, it's clear, had witnessed a lot of angst in this marriage.
There was a lot of fighting going on from the time they were little because it pretty much
spanned their whole lifetime. VINNIE INFANTE: I mean, their personalities grew apart.
I think they kind of settled for each other because they were friends, they were neighbors.
But that never gave them the opportunity to grow as a person, individually, and experience
those breakups and other people, which every healthy relationship and person kind of needs
to go through, I think. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: So things are often difficult in that big Connecticut house.
I'm sensing tension. CAROLYN CANVILLE: Thomas was a dark, angry. He had a quick temper, and he was
known to sometimes get violent when he had his outbursts. VINNIE INFANTE: It was like bickering,
just like little stuff. Like I felt it was just stupid stuff they would always fight about.
But I guess that all build up, build up, build up, and just turned into something big.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: You know, they don't talk about physical abuse. They don't talk about beatings.
They talk about hurting each other. My parents always were fighting. They were always abusing each other.
They there was a lot of pain on both sides is what the daughter said later in court.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: I want to know if there is any red flags here. Karen Jarmoc from the Coalition Against Domestic Violence
knows this stuff, and she doesn't like what she's hearing. KAREN JARMOC: It's the threats, the harassment,
isolating someone from their family, friends, coworkers, using coercion and control to try to really take control over your partner.
So many people think domestic violence and they think of a black eye or a broken limb.
And it can be that, but, generally, it's just much more subliminal. BRIAN HARRIS: She had posted on her own social media
about how abusive, mentally, her husband could be. KAREN JARMOC: It's that very under the surface
stuff that may or may not have been occurring in this relationship around the subliminal power
and control the person's trying to have over the other. And when they start to lose that it can
become very, very dangerous. CAROLYN CANVILLE: Lisa and Thomas have been married for 27 years.
You think, wow, they've weathered a lot. But this was not a good marriage and apparently
not from the get go. It was filled with, you know, fighting and abuse, verbal, perhaps physical.
Everybody said that this from the very start had its problems, but they stuck together.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: I've heard this story before. Lisa and Thomas Infante try to make it work for years, being
the best parents they can be. Staying together for the kids because they have so much history together.
And then that doesn't seem so important. BRIAN HARRIS: She decided it was over. She was going to take charge of her life.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: She was ready to move on. BRIAN HARRIS: It's the most dangerous time
for any female when they've finally made the decision to leave. [music playing] MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Tom and Lisa
stick it out for 27 years of marriage, raising four great kids. Admirable, but in 2015, tensions are out in the open.
VINNIE INFANTE: I know they were seeing a couples therapist, which I don't think helped at all.
I think it made things worse, honestly. CAROLYN CANVILLE: Lisa's sister, Lynn Everlilthe,
was never a big fan of Thomas Infante. She really didn't want them to get married to begin with.
She said, their marriage had been strained right from the get go. She said, those children had been raised
in a really toxic environment. And she says that he was just a miserable person to be around.
He was never pleasant to be around. VINNIE INFANTE: I think mom was more of a gradual change.
You can kind of see her veering away throughout the years. Dad always tried to do the best he could.
But, I mean, their personalities grew apart. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Life is beating
Lisa and Tom up in other ways. In the last two years, Tom's dad had died. Then both of Lisa's parents had passed to.
Then this bombshell from Lisa. She told her husband that she had met someone. She told her that she wanted a divorce.
And according to her, she told her friends, apparently, that she had already hired a divorce attorney.
And she was ready, and she was starting to make plans. VINNIE INFANTE: But at a certain point,
he just was like mom's cheating on me. And it kind of threw me back because they've been,
my parents, together for the whole 20 years of my life. And she was over hanging out with this guy making dinner
for his kids, and it was just-- I'm like just why would you do that, mom? You got a great family.
You have a great house. I mean, I guess she wasn't happy. She went up to me when she was talking about it.
She was like don't want me to be happy? And that kind of threw me for a loop because I didn't know how to answer that question.
I'm like of course I want you to be happy, mom. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Lisa makes up her mind.
She's doing this, but Tom just isn't coming to terms with the fact that his marriage is over.
VINNIE INFANTE: I was pretty close to him. So I got to see the good, bad, and ugly.
So I know when I was down in Florida with the Navy he would call me up and he would just be
crying his eyes out about mom. And no kid wants to hear their dad cry. You could just see dad deteriorating.
He was just depressed. He would just call me upset in weird times of the night. And then once I got home from the Navy
after a long nine months of being away, you'd think you want to hang out with your kid.
He didn't even want to do that. I tried to get him up, try to bring him to county fairs or something.
And he just would not get out of bed. He was like a blob. And I thought it was just going to be the sissy
about the whole thing. And I really did not know what was going through his head.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: Thomas, he still loved his wife. He may have been a mean and angry guy.
He may have abused her. But he still considered this is my wife. She belongs to me, and no one else should have her.
He didn't necessarily voice that to her. He would talk to her about let's not get divorced.
He would kind of plead with her. But she had made up her mind. VINNIE INFANTE: Dad didn't really have that personality
where he would actually go out and talk to a therapist or something. I think he went to a doctor and they
gave him some antidepressants. Who knows if those are good for him. Probably not.
He was never the kind of guy who would actually take pills. He wouldn't even take aspirin for a headache.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Karen Jarmoc, the campaigner against domestic violence, is worried
about what she's hearing, telling Tom he is history. That's bad territory Lisa is entering.
KAREN JARMOC: That's a really, really critical dangerous time because then they start losing their control
and things begin to unravel. So we always know, and that's, I think, what's so tragic and sad, when a domestic violence homicide
occurs because there are always these red flags that aren't always as noticeable to the victim
and/or to those individuals around them. But when we look back we see them there.
BRIAN HARRIS: 38% of the time when women are murdered, they're murdered by their spouse or loved one,
compared to only 6% of men. Oftentimes as police officers, we say why don't they just leave.
Well, out of those 38% of women who get murdered, nearly 68% of those women are murdered when they finally
made the decision to leave. And this was the same case in Shelton, Connecticut. She decided it was over.
She was going to take charge of her life. It's the most dangerous time for any female or any relationship.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: So she's moving on, he's not. So you can see that in his mind he's thinking,
I'm not ready for her to move on, she's ready for her to move on. I don't want anyone to have her.
So what is he going to do? MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Does Lisa Infante have any idea that she's in danger?
CAROLYN CANVILLE: Lisa had a Facebook account. And on her Facebook page, you could often
see she was one of those people that loved those motivational sayings. You know, if opportunity doesn't knock, build a door,
happiness is your birthright. She liked that kind of stuff. And usually it was positive.
But there was this one post that she made that really got people's attention because it
really wasn't like her. And she's posting about giving people a second chance. And she's warning against it.
BRIAN HARRIS: If you give a person a second chance, it's like giving them another bullet to put in the gun.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: We don't know if Lisa is scared of Thomas at this point. We do know she's counting down the days until she can
start over with this new guy. CAROLYN CANVILLE: She's making plans. She is arranging her bank account.
She's becoming financially independent. And she's also-- she's a yoga instructor.
And she's also kind of stepping up her own routine because she wants to get in shape for this new life
she's planning and this new person that she plans to be with. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Vinnie comes home
from the Navy on leave in 2015. He hardly recognizes what his family has become.
VINNIE INFANTE: Mom was never home. She was either always working or working seeing this guy.
And then dad was just so depressed he didn't want to do anything, didn't want to hang out with
us. And then I just remember getting angry at her for never being around. Because I'm like, mom, I haven't seen you
in months, almost a year, and you're just not here. I miss you. It was rough because they were doing their own thing.
And I just wanted some family time. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Do the Infante kids suspect that dad's
going to become murderous? VINNIE INFANTE: Knowing him for the first 20 years of my life, 20 plus years of my life,
he was not like that. He wouldn't even go hunting with me. He would get too sensitive.
He was, Oh I don't want to kill any deers. I don't want to kill Bambi. So he was just a sensitive guy.
It's just not something he would do. But I guess you put so much on someone and anyone can break.
[music playing] MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: It's September 27, 2015, and the peace and quiet of Shelton, Connecticut
is interrupted by a single gunshot inside a family home. VINNIE INFANTE: Way sometime in the evening,
I get a call from my little brother, which is unusual because Matty usually never calls me.
And I pick up, and he's like, Vinnie, you gotta come home. Mom's dead. BRIAN HARRIS: But in that moment, where's the husband?
Where's the father of the children? He has fled. He has grabbed alcohol. He has grabbed medication, and he's gone.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: What is going on with everyone here? The younger kids are at home, but Vinnie
is in a celebration mode. The night before was a big one. VINNIE INFANTE: It was my fiance's birthday party.
My parents came, first time that my parents met her parents. I stayed over her house that night, hung out with her
the whole day because it was her birthday. CAROLYN CANVILLE: So Thomas is at work.
Lisa puts the kids to bed. She gets dinner on. She feeds the kids. She kisses them goodnight, puts them to bed.
She goes to her own bedroom. BRIAN HARRIS: Not much unlike many other homes across the United States.
You have a wife in her master bedroom. Her children, whether they're on their phones, watching TV.
It's life. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Yes, it's life. But it's about to be over for one member of the family.
A couple of hours later, Lisa is found dead in the bed she once shared with her husband.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: It's hard to believe. Could she have done this to herself? BRIAN HARRIS: So what has happened?
It tells a story. When you look at the body positioning. The way the body is twisted on that bed.
The door to the master bedroom opens. The victim sees who their assailant is, probably
knows who their assailant is. CAROLYN CANVILLE: He's made sure he has ammunition for his gun.
He has mapped out an escape route. BRIAN HARRIS: She knows that whoever came into this room
is coming with a purpose. And it wasn't long. It was fast. It was quick. It was efficient.
And so she turns and that is why she's shot in the back of her head. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Thomas Infante
shoots Lisa, his wife of 27 years, and leaves her for the kids to find. VINNIE INFANTE: It was definitely hard.
I know my siblings had totally different experiences. I know Harrison and Matt actually found her.
I'm not sure if Kayla had witnessed it. I hope not. I know I didn't. It was probably for the best.
I don't know if I can handle seeing my mother that way. CAROLYN CANVILLE: Once Thomas kills her, once he shoots her
and he knows she's dead, he leaves. He grabs some pills. He grabs some alcohol. He takes off and he hits the road.
VINNIE INFANTE: The whole day is kind of a blur because it was just totally life changing.
And instantaneously, I didn't have my mother. I had no clue of what happened to my father.
And I can only go on assumptions at that point. BRIAN HARRIS: This small town, this kind of crime
doesn't happen in Shelton, Connecticut. But that peace and quiet who sat 911 one
call of a son discovering the body of his own mother. VINNIE INFANTE: I did not believe it at all.
I thought if anything she committed suicide. Because I know she was going through a lot, a lot,
like between her boyfriend and the divorce. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: The cops arrive and try to make sense
of what's happened and fast. Homicide is familiar territory for Brian Harris. What is a detective looking for right now?
BRIAN HARRIS: One of the things as a homicide detective you're looking for is this a staged event.
Is it an organized scene versus disorganized? Was there a sign of a struggle? Was there a fight?
Are there pieces of furniture knocked over? What is happening? MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: One thing is pretty clear,
Lisa's husband is nowhere to be seen. VINNIE INFANTE: I mean, I had no clue what was going on.
I tried calling my dad like a million times, could not get him on the phone. BRIAN HARRIS: The detectives, they want to find Thomas.
He's clearly a person of interest. They need to find out. Where is he? Through all of this where is he?
CAROLYN CANVILLE: Turns out, Thomas had hit the road. They track his cell phone and they see that he
is already in Pennsylvania. And then all of a sudden, the phone goes dead. Somebody turned it off or the battery died.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: The cops get searching for Thomas Infante. Back at the house, it doesn't take detectives
long to figure things out. BRIAN HARRIS: This crime scene, like many others, the evidence that is left behind is part of a bigger story.
So there is a shell casing, a .380 shell casing, that is left behind. They didn't have time to look for that .380 shell casings.
Because when shell casings get injected, they bounce. They move. Oftentimes, that position of that shell casing
doesn't necessarily reflect where that person was standing. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: The two children in the house
are questioned. It looks more and more like the killer is someone the family knows well, very well.
BRIAN HARRIS: This killer did not spend time in this room. There were no drawers gone through.
This wasn't a robbery. It was a single shot. The children aren't startled by any strangers in the home.
Whoever did this the children felt comfortable with their presence. Whoever did this it was a personal attack.
And once they did it, they knew they had to get out of there. VINNIE INFANTE: The whole family was distraught.
Nobody really knew what was going on. Nobody knew where dad was. I think after a while we kind of like figured it out.
At first, I can only-- I thought it was like-- I don't know like-- her boyfriend did it.
Because I couldn't think that dad would do it. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: The priority for police right now
has to be tracking down Thomas. He is the prime suspect in the murder. Who knows what he might do next.
They track his phone signal again. BRIAN HARRIS: And what they're able to do then
is track that cell phone. And they're following the signal for that cell phone. Where is it?
It's like a homing device, a GPS. And where do they find him, but, hundreds, literally hundreds of miles away at the Pennsylvania,
Ohio border. While the police are tracking this phone, and they're seeing it. It's in Pennsylvania 200 miles away.
They lose the signal. Perhaps, the battery's dead or did this person turn it off.
Did they have the mindset, I need to turn my phone off because they can find me that way.
They've watched enough TV to know that that can be done. CAROLYN CANVILLE: He's almost to the Ohio State line
and he realizes, oh gosh, I got to tell them what I did. BRIAN HARRIS: And lo and behold at the Shelton Police
Department who walks through their front doors, but Thomas, Thomas himself. Wearing the same t-shirt with the blood on it, walks in turns
himself into the police. CAROLYN CANVILLE: When he shows up there he's still wearing the same t-shirt he was wearing.
It's soaked with his wife's blood. BRIAN HARRIS: That's how close. That's personal.
He didn't just stand at the doorway and fire from a distance. As his wife went to get out of bed,
he's not just slowly walking. He's marching towards her, gun pointed straight at her.
And she twists and turns and he puts that gun right up on her. So close that when he pulls the trigger
that there is blood that spatters up back on to him. It's that close and personal.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Thomas turns himself in. But he's not ready just yet to admit to this horrible crime.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: He was kind of operating in this fugue state. So when he hits the road and he finally blacks out and comes
to that's when he realizes he needs to tell police what he did. And that's when he shows up at the police station.
BRIAN HARRIS: He's not ready to take responsibility. You see, he thought he was man enough to do what he did.
But he wasn't man enough to accept the responsibility for his actions. So what does he do?
He blames it on medicine, alcohol, he blacked out, remembers going to the house but after that,
it's almost as if it's an outer body experience. He has no recollection of what took place.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Lisa is dead. Her husband is in custody charged with her murder.
It should be a slam dunk case. But Thomas confesses to nothing. CAROLYN CANVILLE: He says he had some pills.
He had some booze. And at some point, he just blacked out. He basically says he didn't really know
what he was doing that night. He really didn't know what was going on. VINNIE INFANTE: And something snaps
and short circuited his mind. Everything kind of just build up, build up, build up,
and at a certain point, just cracked. [music playing] MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Lisa Infante, mother of four, dead.
Two days later, Thomas, the man she was trying to leave, appears in court charged with first degree murder.
Detectives say Tom's already told them he shot her during an argument. But in court, he's admitting nothing.
After nearly three years in the Northern Correctional Institute in Somers, Connecticut,
his trial date comes around. CAROLYN CANVILLE: So Thomas has plead not guilty. And his trial is about to begin.
They're going to go into jury selection. But on the eve of his trial, he decides to take a plea.
And Thomas pleads to a reduced charge. BRIAN HARRIS: It doesn't fall on deaf ears to the prosecutors,
to the defense team about the staggering domestic violence stats that are out there.
It doesn't fall on deaf ears that the victim herself, her life, she will be judged about the choices that she
made, not only to leave her husband, but that she was ready to move on. And what kind of picture were they going to paint?
That she was some harlequin that was having an affair? VINNIE INFANTE: But then also a lot of things
came out of the woodwork afterwards finding out that she cheated on dad 15 years prior with the same guy.
So I guess my parents did a good job at covering things up. BRIAN HARRIS: You see, in life, but also in death,
we have to treat our victims with dignity. And this was the chance for the state
to treat the victim with dignity, while at the same time issuing punishment to the perpetrator.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: He pleads to first degree manslaughter, committed under extreme emotional disturbance.
So this, we can imagine, is the mitigating factor, which is going to affect how we sentenced.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Tom's lawyer pleads for a lenient sentence. He tells the court his client has been under extreme pressure
in the weeks and months leading up to the shooting. That is something that Vinnie's happy to corroborate.
VINNIE INFANTE: My sister, I think a couple of weeks before everything happened, I guess she was doing some
off roading on her dirt bike. Hit a fence from what I've heard. Went over the handlebars.
And the handlebar like stabbed her in the stomach. So my mom was working. She picked her up in an ambulance.
And she was with her through the whole thing. That was really hard for dad. I know he was in the hospital with her almost every day.
So was mom. So that was really hard on the whole family. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: The same month one of the Infante boys
had ended up in the hospital after an accident on his four Wheeler. VINNIE INFANTE: Same time period.
My brother was up in Maine and got into a quadding accident. So he was in the hospital.
It was just a really hard time for dad seeing three of his kids away from them. Two of them in hospital.
And then in between mom cheating one him and him hating his job and everything else
going on in his life, I mean, a guy can only take so much the way I look at it. It's like his whole world was falling apart.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Even though they're virtually orphans, even though they're still devastated by their mom's
death, some of Tom Infante's kids still refuse to believe that their dad is a killer.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: To testify that while her father really loved her mother but she could not remember a time
when the couple ever got along. And that seemed to be backed up by a lot of people.
VINNIE INFANTE: Some people think that there's sides to the whole thing. You're either on mom's side or your
on dad's side, which is totally not the case because I know at least, in my shoes, I loved both of them
equally. They're my parents. I can't take sides. I know dad did what he did. Mom did what she did.
They both did bad things. But I can't really say I love one more than the other,
even after everything that happened. But you just can't take sides to the whole circumstance.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: The daughter's very close to dad. She's very defensive. And she says dad just wanted to be loved.
That's all he wanted. He just wanted to be cared for. He loved my mom. They never got along.
I can't remember a time when they ever got along. There was a lot of abuse. There was a lot of fighting.
There was a lot of pain on both sides. But daddy always loved mom. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Prosecutors are not
buying this version of events. Witnesses describe Thomas Infante as unpleasant, violent,
maybe even abusive. They describe Lisa as a woman who was finally ready to break
free of a toxic marriage. BRIAN HARRIS: She was a mother that was in a relationship crisis.
She had come to a point in her life where she had made the decision that this marriage
to her husband was indeed going to end. She was ready to move on and even had found another love interest.
KAREN JARMOC: There's always a history. There's always a history. This just doesn't extemporaneously occur one day.
There's always a history and, generally, it's some kind of a build up. CAROLYN CANVILLE: Thomas was a dark and sullen character.
He was depressed. But some of that depression, I think you could argue, was of his own making.
He didn't take steps to change, and he didn't ask for help. KAREN JARMOC: This is not behavior
that you can blame on, oh, so-and-so was drinking that day. Yes, OK, they may have been drinking that day,
but that behavior has to exist in that individual before. In fact, the prosecutors say that this could even have
been a premeditated attack. BRIAN HARRIS: This is a man that had to leave a location where
he was because he was no longer in the home, came in the home, knew his children were going to be in there.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: He's made sure that he has ammunition for his gun. BRIAN HARRIS: Fired one round.
So he brought a weapon into the home. CAROLYN CANVILLE: He coldly grabbed a gun and held it to her head and pulled the trigger
and ripped her life away. BRIAN HARRIS: Then takes medicine, takes alcohol, and tries to flee.
But he quickly realizes the gig is going to go up. It's not a crime of passion because he never claims that.
He never paints himself as a victim. What does he do instead? I blacked out. I have no recollection.
I can't remember. I don't recall. It's the big blackout bad guy defense. It's not a crime of passion.
This was well thought out. It was premeditated. Now, how it was executed, a poor plan.
But he darn sure knew what he was doing. CAROLYN CANVILLE: He got his way. Thomas said, if I can't have her,
no one will, and he killed her. No one can have Lisa now because Thomas pulled that trigger.
Thomas made the ultimate decision. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: When he sentences Thomas Infante
the superior court judge tells him people, for the most part, don't take the life of another person.
It's a shame, he said. You couldn't keep the photographs of your four children in your head
and understand what was happening. Thomas is sentenced to 40 years in prison. Some of that term could be suspended after 25 years.
BRIAN HARRIS: He will remain in jail until he's over 80 years old, at least 25 calendar years before he's
even eligible for parole. What no homicide detective can explain is how a father can do this to his own kids' mom.
That can't be explained. People often talk about quick closure. That there's closure when a homicide case is solved.
There's never any closure. VINNIE INFANTE: It was definitely hard to get through it.
It was a lot all at once, and nobody should ever go through that, especially kids our age.
No matter what age you are I guess it's hard. Some forgive dad, some don't. Some can talk to him, some can't.
It's just really hard. You can't let it hold you back. If you eat you alive, I mean, a lot
of people they would just go down the hole and never return. BRIAN HARRIS: Those children will grow up without a father.
And the deep wounds and scars of knowing that their mother was murdered and that she knew what
was coming. It's a lifelong of pain and healing that that family is going to have to go through.
VINNIE INFANTE: The whole aftermath of it really kind of tore the family apart. No one goes to the birthday parties
or Thanksgiving or Christmases any more together. Me and my brothers and sisters were
still really close, which that's the most important thing to me. I wish everybody could work together and be
one big, happy family again, but I don't think that will ever be the case. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Lisa and Thomas Infante
were childhood friends and high school sweethearts. They were married for 27 years.
But only a few of them were good. Depressed and facing the prospect of losing her to another man, he made the devastating decision
to kill her. VINNIE INFANTE: The way I want my mother to be remembered is not that she cheated on my dad
because that's not her personality. She was an EMT. She helped out the community.
Helped out people. I would just like people to know her as a loving mother, as a great person, great personality,
awesome to hang out with. I even actually miss shopping with her, just like grocery shopping.
And I really just took that for granted growing up. But now there's like nothing I wouldn't do just to go grocery
shopping with her again. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Remember, the person most likely to kill you may be the person you married.
I'm Michelle Trachtenberg, and I'll see you next time on "Meet Mary Murder" [theme music]

Hi FilmRise True Crimers! On this next episode of Meet Marry Murder: Highschool sweethearts Thomas and Lisa Infante got married young and started a family but as they grew older, they drifted apart and decided to call it quits. However, Thomas decided to take matters into his own hands. Divorce is hard on everyone involved but to bring murder into the equation? That’s inexcusable. For more tales of Meet Marry Murder, be sure to like and subscribe. Please share your thoughts on this heartbreaking story in the comments below. ❤ Michelle Trachtenberg

Brief Summary

Thomas Infante killed his wife Lisa after she decided to leave him, leading to a tragic family fallout.

Key points

A Family Torn Apart. Thomas Infante's violent actions lead to the tragic death of his wife, Lisa.
The Dangers of Leaving. Leaving an abusive relationship can be the most dangerous time for women.
A Shocking Revelation. Lisa Infante's social media posts hint at deeper issues in her marriage.
A Personal Attack. The investigation reveals the killer was someone the family knew well.
Thomas Infante Turns Himself In. After fleeing, Thomas walks into the police station wearing a blood-soaked shirt.
Trial and Plea Deal. On the eve of his trial, Thomas pleads to a reduced charge of manslaughter.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

No one can have Lisa now because Thomas pulled that trigger.

0:23WatchDec 15, 2022

Tension

80/ 100High tension

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