Fourth murder trial for Cara Rintala gets underway in Northampton

NORTHAMPTON, MA (WGGB/WSHM) - The fourth murder trial for Cara Rintala, who is accused of killing her wife back in 2010, began Wednesday morning in Northampton.

“On March 29, 2010, 37-year-old Annamarie Cochran-Rintala took her last breath on this earth with the hands of her wife, Cara Lee Rintala, squeezed tightly around her neck,” said Northwestern Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Suhl.

“They want you to believe that Cara Rintala was the only one in the whole world who had access to that house and the only one in the whole world who could’ve done this,” said defense attorney Rosemary Scapicchio

The prosecution and defense laid out their cases to the jury on Wednesday in the latest murder trial for Cara Rintala, the woman accused of killing her wife, Annamarie Cochran, in 2010.

The case made national headlines as a series of trials since 2010 have gone without a solid conviction. Even after a jury found Cara Rintala guilty of first-degree murder in the case’s third trial back in 2016, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overturned the verdict in 2021 after expert witness testimony was deemed improper.

Now in 2023, the case continues on its fourth go-around with the prosecution calling a series of witnesses to the stand.

“What did you see as you descended the basement stairs,” Suhl asked.

“Cara was sitting on the floor, obviously crying and very upset and holding a female party across her lap,” said Granby Police Lt. Gary Poehler.

Poehler was one of the first responders at the murder scene and described what he saw in Rintala’s basement. He told the jury that he saw Annamarie dead, beaten and bloodied, covered in wet paint and Cara Rintala holding her slain wife in her arms.

Rintala’s defense objected to certain verbiage regarding the condition of the paint spread across the scene and stated none of the witnesses testifying on Wednesday have the expertise to determine the freshness or pattern of the paint splatter that would speak to Cochran’s time of death.

“They have people who have no expert training, don’t have any basis whether to say it was poured, whether it was fresh. They haven’t identified them as experts. I would object to any first responder describing anything other than the paint appeared to be wet,” Scapicchio noted.

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