Two stay in jail in Delaware slaying

WILMINGTON - The widow of a man who killed their former daughter-in-law and another woman at a courthouse following a bitter custody battle will remain in custody pending a detention hearing.

A federal magistrate issued the order Thursday for Lenore Matusiewicz, 68. Matusiewicz and daughter Amy Gonzalez, 41, were arrested in Texas last month on federal conspiracy and stalking charges.

Matusiewicz is the mother of former Delaware optometrist David Matusiewicz, 46. Gonzalez is his sister. All three were indicted last month on charges of conspiracy, interstate stalking, and cyberstalking of David Matusiewicz's ex-wife, Christine Belford. They could face life in prison if convicted of stalking that resulted in Belford's death.

David Matusiewicz's father, Thomas, fatally shot Belford and her friend Laura Mulford after they arrived at the New Castle County courthouse for a Feb. 11 hearing on David Matusiewicz's request to modify his child support for the three daughters he had with Belford. The elder Matusiewicz, 68, then exchanged gunfire with police before killing himself.

Magistrate Judge Mary Pat Thynge ordered that Lenore Matusiewicz and Gonzalez remain in custody pending a hearing next Thursday on a motion by prosecutors to keep them both behind bars until their trial.

Thynge granted the women's request for court-appointed counsel and advised them not to talk about the case, warning that anything they said could be used against them by the government.

Federal prosecutors say that David Matusiewicz conspired with his parents and sister over several years to torment and stalk his ex-wife with the intent to kill, injure, harass, and intimidate her.

Thomas Matusiewicz's family members have denied knowing that he intended to kill Belford.

"They want somebody to blame, and Dad's dead," David Matusiewicz said in a recent interview.

David Matusiewicz pleaded guilty in 2009 to federal fraud and kidnapping charges after he and his mother took his three daughters to Central America in 2007. The Matusiewicz family has said the abduction was an attempt to protect one of the daughters from being sexually abused by Belford, an assertion a federal judge said had not been proved.

Lenore Matusiewicz served more than a year in Delaware's state prison for child endangerment for her role in the 2007 kidnapping of her granddaughters.

David Matusiewicz was released from prison last year but was rearrested after the courthouse shooting on charges that he violated the terms of his probation, which included a prohibition against being around guns.