Morgan Absher

So maybe he could get out in his lifetime.

Lindley's trial began on December 6th, 2021.

She was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of armed criminal action.

The prosecution's two-star witnesses, Ashley and Michael, both testified on the first day of the trial, and a few new details came to light.

First, Michael changed his story about the day of the murder, saying that Lindley did initially ask him to kill Ben, but he refused.

Michael also testified that on the day of the murder, he offered Lindley methamphetamine to get her amped up for the confrontation.

And the rest of the story besides those two details was pretty much the same.

Another employee, Rachel Hunt, testified that she found out about the plan on the day of the murder, June 8th, 2017.

And according to Rachel, she and Lindley talked during their smoke breaks about...

ways to kill Ben.

This didn't bother Rachel because she did also believe that Ben was sexually assaulting Lindley.

The witnesses were strong, but to get a first-degree murder conviction, the state needed to prove not only that Lindley pulled the trigger, but that it was premeditated.

So they leaned really heavily in on her text messages.

They revealed to the jury that Lindley sent nude photos of herself to Ben hours before the murder and

They argued that she was trying to set up Ben to be killed by convincing him that they were about to have a sexy date night.

And in the hours leading up to the murder, Lindley also texted Ben to say she loved him and then switched to her conversation with Michael to ask if he was on his way yet.

And then after the murder, while the coroner examined Ben's body, Lindley flirted with one of her affair partners via text.

They also showed evidence that Lindley was the sole beneficiary on Ben's million-dollar life insurance policy and that she expected to make money from his snake operation, proving that she did have motive.

And then I misled the investigation and actually started accusing his brother, who had nothing to do with any of this.

Yeah.