SAN DIEGO : Fatal Plunge Trial Coming to a Close
The jury in the murder and conspiracy trial of Virginia Reardon heard closing arguments Tuesday from attorneys who hold differing beliefs on whether the victim’s fall down a cliff near Big Sur was an accident or a murder designed to collect on an insurance policy.
Reardon, 55, is charged with killing Deana Hubbard Wild on April 2, 1987. Prosecutors allege that Reardon and her deceased husband, Billie Joe McGinnis, conspired to kill the 20-year-old woman in order to collect on a $35,000 insurance policy that took effect the day before her death.
In his closing argument, Deputy Dist. Atty. Luis Aragon called Wild an “ideal victim” because she was a naive young person from Kentucky who was killed at a remote site.
Aragon said the insurance policy is the most damaging piece of evidence against Reardon, calling the document “a stunning monument to their audacity and greed.”
In response, defense attorney Albert Tamayo told the jury that Wild may have slipped before she fell 400 feet to her death.
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