AMANDA HOVANEC, a 38-year-old woman in Ohio is expected to spend the rest of her life in prison after admitting she killed her husband by ambushing him and injecting him with a fatal dose of an animal tranquilizer during a custody exchange in 2022.
Court records reviewed by Law&Crime show that Amanda Leigh Hovanec pleaded guilty last month in Auglaize County Court of Common Pleas to one count of aggravated murder in the death of her husband, 36-year-old Timothy Hovanec.
Hovanec is already serving a 40-year federal prison sentence after pleading guilty to multiple offenses, including distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death. During her federal sentencing hearing, she told the court that the killing stemmed from her own selfish actions.
Amanda and Timothy Hovanec shared three daughters. Timothy Hovanec worked as a researcher for the U.S. State Department, a role that required the family to relocate multiple times, including a period in South Africa in 2018. While living there, Amanda Hovanec began a relationship with a South African citizen named Anthony Theodorou.
Theodorou and Amanda Hovanec’s mother, Anita Green, have both been convicted of federal crimes connected to Timothy Hovanec’s killing and are awaiting trial in state court.
After the family returned to the United States in 2020, Amanda Hovanec filed for divorce. Prosecutors said she later denied Timothy Hovanec visitation with their children despite a court order allowing it. Two days before the killing, however, a judge ordered that Timothy Hovanec receive two days of custody and be designated the residential and legal custodian of the children for the summer beginning May 28, 2022.
During that custody period, prosecutors said Amanda Hovanec planned to inject her husband with M-99, a drug used in veterinary and wildlife medicine that is significantly more potent than morphine.
Federal prosecutors stated that Timothy Hovanec was unloading car seats from his vehicle when Amanda Hovanec approached and injected him. The incident was captured on the victim’s dash camera. Court filings describe a struggle in which Amanda Hovanec prevented her husband from using his phone before he collapsed and became unresponsive in the driveway.
Prosecutors said Amanda Hovanec then took steps to disable the vehicle and remove personal items from her husband before the recording stopped. The tranquilizer had been shipped to her approximately one month earlier by Theodorou, who admitted to digging a shallow grave the day before the killing.
After the attack, prosecutors said Amanda Hovanec placed a plastic covering over Timothy Hovanec’s body before disposing of his remains with the help of her co-defendants. Court documents state that the following day, Green drove Amanda Hovanec, Theodorou, and the body to a pre-dug burial site near farmland once owned by Amanda Hovanec’s grandfather, later returning to pick them up.
Prosecutors alleged that Amanda Hovanec told her mother in advance that she planned to kill her husband and later confirmed that it had been done. The body was buried in a wooded area in Auglaize County using shovels taken from Green’s home.
Initially, Amanda Hovanec told investigators that her ex-husband left after dropping off the children. Authorities said she later confessed after being confronted with video evidence, admitting she injected Timothy Hovanec with a substance she understood would kill him within minutes.
A sentencing date in state court had not been set as of Monday. Under Ohio law, Amanda Hovanec faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Green and Theodorou remain charged in state court with complicity to aggravated murder and are scheduled for a pretrial hearing on March 13.
