Woman jailed for 20 years for killing bigamist husband who was planning to get Muslim wife pregnant

Myra Morton, 48, tearfully apologised to the mother of victim Jereleigh Morton during the sentencing hearing yesterday.

She had pleaded guilty in April to third-degree murder for fatally shooting her husband of 25 years as he slept in their suburban Philadelphia home.

Jailed: Myra Morton

Bigamist: Jereleigh Morton

Myra Morton initially blamed the killing on an intruder, but her attorneys later acknowledged that the crime was intentional. They said the killing stemmed from the damaged psyche of a humiliated, middle-aged woman.

The Mortons had converted to Islam about 20 years ago.

Jereleigh Morton met a Moroccan woman on the Internet in late 2006 and soon arranged to marry her. Myra Morton traveled to Morocco to bless his March 2007 marriage to 37-year-old Zahra Toural.

But police say Myra Morton grew to resent the arrangement, at least in part because her husband was sending Toural $3,000 (£1,500) a month.

Myra Morton is escorted to her arraignment earlier this month

In emotional testimony yesterday, the victim's mother, Delzora Morton, said Myra Morton did not have to resort to violence.

"Why couldn't you just leave him? Why did you take my son away from me?" Delzora Morton said.

"All you had to do was walk away from him, like I told you so many times."

After the victim's mother asked Morton "Why, Myra?" from the stand, she cried out from her seat at the defense table: "I don't remember! I don't remember!"

Speaking to the judge, Delzora Morton said, "I just want her to apologise to me now."

Then Myra Morton, through tears, said, "I'm sorry" from her seat in court.

She later apologised again from the stand, but said she still doesn't remember everything about the night she shot her husband.

"No one ever walks away from a marriage that they invested their life in," she said in a quiet tone.

"But what he asked me to do tore me apart. ... This was one thing I couldn't deal with."