WASHINGTON STATE, USA, Fri. Mar. 25, 2022– The children of Timothy McNamara—a US farm operator who was murdered in Belize on Christmas Day in 2014—have won the civil murder suit brought against their father’s alleged killer: their cousin (McNamara’s niece) whom he had married a year prior to his death. The verdict, delivered in a Washington State courtroom on Friday, March 25, came after a three-and- a-half-hour deliberation, during which the jury arrived at the conclusion that Tracy Nessl had willfully “committed battery” against McNamara and caused his death. She will be ordered to pay his children, Caleb McNamara and Jennifer Ralston, $3.3 million in damages.
According to Stritmatter Firm, which is providing legal representation to Caleb and Jennifer, Tim McNamara and Tracy Nessl began dating in 2012. Within months, McNamara had paid off all of Nessl’s bills, had named her on his life insurance policy, and had made her the sole beneficiary in his will. A year later, the couple married, with McNamara purchasing 50 acres of land in Belize and placing it in both their names. Wanting to start a new life after being shunned in their hometown for the incestuous nature of their relationship, they then began to build on the property located in Boston Village off the Old Northern Highway. But in December 2014, McNamara would be found dead on that property, with a single gunshot wound to the back of his head.
McNamara’s wife claimed that it was suicide—a claim that she maintained even during the 2022 trial. But local investigators eventually found that McNamara had been murdered, citing splatters of blood on Tracy Nessl’s blouse, the trajectory of the bullet, and a lack of gunpowder on the victim’s hands as evidence. By that time, however, Nessl had left the country, returning to Soap Lake, Washington, to live on the McNamara family farm, which she now owns.
After the murder, Belize police put out an Interpol warrant for Nessl’s arrest but were unable to pursue the matter any further, since it required the US to allow for extradition and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had no jurisdiction. This is what led McNamara’s children to file a civil murder suit in Washington in 2015, claiming that Nessl had “seduced, murdered, and deceived” their father for financial gain. They were able to file the suit under Washington’s Slayer Statute, which states that a person may not benefit from a property if they had killed a person to get it. That trial began on March 7, 2022, and concluded last Friday.
“…the jury announced its verdict in favor of criminal murder. Specifically, Defendant [Tracy Nessl] committed battery against Tim McNamara which proximately caused his death. Her actions were unlawful and willful. Plaintiffs did not want a dollar more from Defendant than what she took,” read the statement released by Stritmatter Firm after the verdict was delivered.
Tim McNamara and Tracy Nessl married in 2013 while keeping their blood relation a secret, but by 2014, witness reports state that the couple’s relationship had soured, with McNamara having discovered that Nessl had an affair. According to the family, Tim McNamara had begun to distrust his wife. Furthermore, the family’s attorneys reported that in October 2014, just two months before the murder, Nessl had purchased a 9mm pistol in North Carolina and had it shipped to Belize. She had the firearm licensed on December 2nd of that year.
The verdict delivered last Friday will see Caleb McNamara and Jennifer Ralston awarded roughly $3.3 million in damages: $77,000 in economic damages to the estate, $1.8 million in personal damages of Timothy McNamara, and $725,000 in damages to each of the children as McNamara’s beneficiaries. So, while Tracy Nessl remains a free woman, she will be required to pay the family every dollar that they say she had taken from their father.