American CLEARED of murdering her multi-millionaire Wall Street husband in Costa Rica bolthole

A three-judge panel acquitted a US expat of a murder charge in the 2010 shooting of her wealthy American Wall Street husband on Monday morning - and it's not the first time.
Ann Patton, 44, was acquitted for the second time in the death of her 44-year-old husband, John Bender, who was found dead with a gunshot wound to the neck in the couple's lavish jungle mansion in Costa Rica.
Patton has always maintained that Bender, who suffered from manic depression and bipolar disorder, committed suicide in their La Florida de Barú, Pérez Zeledón, home. Prosecutors plan on appealing Monday's verdict.

Patton, who just finished her third trial, told The Tico Times that she is 'not yet feeling the relief' and that it will take time to find the words to describe how she's feeling.

'It takes some time to assimilate what the news was,' she said. 'My gut has been telling me all along that this third time I would actually be heard and that the evidence would be evaluated correctly.
'It's impossible to say that I'm happy after five years of this, but yes, I'm relieved. There's a lot left to do, but at least the question mark over my head is halfway erased.'

Patton was first acquitted of murder in 2013. A retrial was held in 2014, however, where she was found guilty and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
She served nine months of her sentence in El Buen Pastor prison in Desamparados, south of San José, before the guilty verdict was thrown out by an appellate court in Cortago.
In February the appellate court ordered a retrial to start on August 10. And on Monday, she was acquitted.
Patton's passport is still in the possession of Costa Rican authorities, but she has no intention of leaving the country illegally.

There is a chance prosecutors will file an appeal, but Patton believes that the judges' ruling was crafted in such a way that it will survive an appeal.

'To face this a fourth time, I have a hard time even seeing that. But it's academically possible. My hope is that the verdict will be strong enough so that an appeal cannot be written or won't be accepted and that it can end now and Jon can finally rest,' she told The Tico Times.

Patton first met Bender in March of 1998 in Virginia. From their first encounter, the couple bonded over their struggle with bipolar disorder and depression. 

Bender, the son of a high-ranking Justice Department official, ran several arbitrage funds and had a personal net worth upward of $600million. He was well on his way to becoming a billionaire when in 2000 he suffered a stroke.

Around the same time, the successful investor cashed out and decided to move to Costa Rica, where he and his wife - both avid outdoorsmen and nature lovers - planned to create a sprawling ecological preserve.
Twelve years later, Patton first went on trial January 14, 2012, testifying that at 12.15am on January 8, 2010, she woke up in her fourth-floor master bedroom to find her husband naked and holding a gun.
According to the woman, when she attempted to wrestle away the pistol, it fired a bullet that struck Bender in the back of the head.