Elizabeth Fox-Doerr was convicted of telling her lover Larry Richmond Sr., right, to murder her husband Robert Doerr, center, as he came home from work in Evansville, Indiana. (Mug shots: Vanderburgh County Jail; Doerr: Obituary)
A jury in Indiana has convicted a woman of murder for telling her lover to kill her longtime firefighter husband.
Elizabeth Fox-Doerr, 52, was found guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the death of 51-year-old Robert Doerr, Indiana court records show. Evansville police allege that she told her lover Larry Richmond, 45, when her husband would be home from work.
The slain firefighter was found dead in his driveway on Feb. 26, 2019, just after 7 p.m. Police say he was shot at least three times as he was getting out of his truck after working a 12-hour shift, according to probable cause affidavits obtained by the Courier & Press.
Richmond is accused of fatally shooting Doerr and is currently awaiting trial. According to the Evansville Police Department, he has long been a suspect in the slaying.
Fox-Doerr, who dialed 911 on the night in question, was originally charged with obstruction of justice and false informing for allegedly deleting a phone call record before calling authorities. Those charges were eventually dropped in October 2019.
In July 2022, Fox-Doerr was charged again, that time with perjury, and she has been detained since her arrest, according to local ABC affiliate WEHT. Prosecutors said the initial charges against the widow were dropped at the request of police to make sure a trial did not interfere with the murder investigation. Authorities charged Fox-Doerr with murder in August 2022.
The conviction came as a relief to Fox-Doerr’s oldest son, who testified against his mother and told jurors his stepdad Doerr was like a father to him.
“It’s been five long years, and finally, justice has been served,” Nathanial Guthrie told the Courier & Press. “Dad can finally, finally rest … He can finally sleep; he can finally be put to rest.”
Fox-Doerr’s defense attorney vehemently denied his client had anything to do with his murder. He said the state never proved that Fox-Doerr told Richmond to kill her husband.
“It felt like I just listened to a screenplay for a crime novel that was based in fiction,” attorney Mark Phillips said during his closing argument, according to the Courier & Press. “The State of Indiana, through its prosecutor, wants you to speculate.”
But Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Diana Moers said the evidence was clear. Not only did the phone logs show she spoke to Richmond before the murder, but there was also motive to kill her husband because she wanted to receive 75% of Doerr’s firefighter pension for life along with a $12,000 death benefit.
“Without the defendant in this case, Larry Richmond would have no reason to murder Doerr,” Moers said, the Courier & Press reported.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the male defendant’s son told police in 2019 that his father sent him and his mother letters, one of which said, according to a police account, “if the gun he stole ever pops up they will be trying to charge him with murder or accessory to murder.”
In February 2020, the EPD held a press conference detailing Richmond’s past and identifying him as a “person of interest” in the Doerr murder. The EPD alleged at the time that Richmond had a prior relationship with the Doerr family at the time the local hero was killed.
Richmond was arrested less than a month after the shooting due to his son’s tip. Police found a box of guns with serial numbers removed and buried in Richmond’s backyard. A felony offender released from prison in March 2018 — after serving 22 years of a 45-year murder sentence — he was legally barred from owning any guns. He served a 60-month sentence on those gun charges and is now in the Vanderburgh County Jail awaiting trial for Doerr’s murder. It’s scheduled for August.
According to the affidavits, the EPD’s investigation also came to rely on the word of a jailhouse informant who said Richmond had admitted to the murder of Doerr on multiple occasions.
Police say that Fox-Doerr eventually admitted to deleting a phone record — which detailed a phone call with her co-defendant telling him when her husband would arrive home — because she “knew he had been in trouble before” and did not want investigators to think the duo had been carrying on romantically, one of the affidavits obtained by WEHT alleges.
Cops say the phone call in question occurred between 6:46 p.m. and 6:51 p.m. The first 911 call was made at 7:05 p.m.
Fox-Doerr’s sentencing is scheduled for June 17.
Her husband worked at the Evansville Fire Department for 28 years, his obituary said.
“Robbie was a workaholic, but when not working enjoyed fishing, bowling and spending time with his granddaughters,” the obit said.
Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report
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