90 years for woman guilty of murdering husband in Evansville

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WIBC) –– A woman found guilty in the murder of her husband in Evansville will be spending the rest of her life in prison.

Elizabeth Fox-Doerr was convicted of murder and conspiracy charges two years ago and has been awaiting sentencing ever since. The sentencing hearing finally took place on Monday in front of a packed courtroom.

Fox-Doerr is said to have arranged for her lover, Larry Richmond, Sr., to murder her husband Robert Doerr, who was a long-time Evansville firefighter. He was found shot and killed in the driveway of his home in February 2019.

“(That’s) a day that turned a lot of people’s lives upside down,” Larry Wildt, a fellow firefighter, said at Fox-Doerr’s sentencing hearing. “I lost my best friend, my fishing partner, my bowling partner.”

Wildt was one of many people who spoke on behalf of the State in the trial, and they all asked the judge to levy the maximum sentence possible. Among those who spoke was Fox-Doerr’s own son, Nathan Guthrie, who was Robert Doerr’s stepson.

“I will never be able to forgive her for being the reason that my siblings and I have lost the family we grew up with,” Guthrie said.

A tearful Fox-Doerr addressed the court for the first time during the hearing and maintained her innocence.

“Regardless of what the verdict says, I am innocent of these crimes,” she said. “I never asked anyone to murder my husband. My world came crashing down on the night of Feb. 26, 2019. I was in shock, devastated, lost, and I have never been the same since.”

Her attorneys argued that the case and evidence were “circumstantial” against her and said there was still reasonable doubt that he committed the crimes she was accused of.

The judge sentenced Fox-Doerr to 60 years in state prison for the charge of murder and another 30 years for the conspiracy charge, bringing her grand total to 90 years in prison.