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Belgian Woman Convicted of Murder for Tampering With Fellow Skydiver's Parachute Out of Jealousy

By Bruce Carton

See if you can guess where this sad story is headed: A Belgian woman, Els Clottemans, was "intimately involved" with a man who was a Dutch skydiver. Another woman, Els Van Doren, was also intimately involved with the Dutch skydiver. Clottesman was jealous of Van Doren, and wanted the Dutch skydiver's attention all to herself. Clottemans and Van Doren were members of the same parachute club (uh oh ... ). Clottemans and Van Doren planned a parachute jump from the same plane on Nov. 18, 2006 (oh no ... ) Any guesses what happened? Well, yesterday, Clottemans was sentenced to 30 years in prison for tampering with Van Doren's parachute, which the jury found caused Van Doren to plummet to her death when her chute failed to open during the Nov. 18, 2006 jump. According to the Associated Press, the jury agreed that a jealous Clottemans was guilty of murdering Van Doren by sabotaging her parachute so neither it nor a safety chute would open during the jump. As a result, "Van Doren crashed into a garden in the East Belgian town of Opglabbeek and died instantly."

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on October 21, 2010 (boomark / email).