The murder of Anna Borntreger by her husband, Samuel Borntreger, is highlighted in the latest episode of Murder In Amish Country on Investigation Discovery.
On December 4, 2006, Anna died from what authorities believed to be a liver issue. Within a year of her death, Samuel remarried and had four more children. He then relocated to Summer Shade, Kentucky.
However, nearly 10 years after her death, in 2016, Samuel went to the police station and confessed to killing the 26-year-old mother of four—the youngest was just 10 months old at the time of her death.
Samuel told investigators that he had fallen out of love with Anna and began putting antifreeze in her drinks and battery acid in her rectum while they were living together on a farm in Harrison County, Missouri.
He was working as a cabinetmaker and later served as a minister in his Amish church. Samuel told officers that he decided to come clean about how his wife died nearly a decade later because he said his conscious was bothering him.
Anna’s body was exhumed from an Amish cemetery in Harrison County and sent to the lab for toxicology testing.
Samuel was arrested in Kentucky at the Barren County Detention Center and later extradited to a Missouri jail where he was held without bond. The then-39-year-old was charged with first-degree murder.
When residents in Harrison County ascertained what Samuel had done, they were stunned. Some stated that he was well known and liked in the community, and they had no idea he was capable of murdering his wife.
In 2016, Samuel accepted a plea deal and pled guilty to second-degree murder. Chariton County Judge Terry Tschannen sentenced him to 25 years in prison.
Murder In Amish Country — Twisted Confession, airs at 8/7c on Investigation Discovery.