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Man convicted in death of woman found hanging in Monroe scrapyard

STROUDSBURG (AP) — A man has been convicted of first-degree murder in the death of a woman whose body was found hanging in a refrigerated trailer parked at an eastern Pennsylvania scrapyard almost nine years ago.

Jurors deliberated for a little more than four hours before convicting 53-year-old James Bidwell on Tuesday night. The defendant, who bowed his head as the verdict was announced, faces a mandatory life prison term without possibility of parole when he is sentenced May 11.

The body of 27-year-old Kristen Wagner was found in June 2011 in the Stroud Townshp scrapyard operated by a company owned by the defendant. The Pocono Record reported that paramedics considered the death suspicious, but investigators and the Monroe County coroner’s office concluded she had taken her own life.

In 2014, however, a co-worker of Bidwell’s reported that the defendant told him he had killed the victim, with whom he had been having an affair, and hung the body from a wire in a scrapyard trailer to make it look like suicide. Bidwell was charged with homicide and evidence-tampering in 2016.

Prosecutors alleged that Wagner had provided information to authorities about Bidwell’s alleged drug trafficking a few days before her death.

Defense attorney Brian McMonagle attacked the credibility of prosecution witnesses and argued that Wagner’s death actually was a suicide. He alleged that she had spoken of suicidal thoughts two months earlier while at a drug treatment facility. McMonagle also said no DNA evidence linked his client to the woman’s death.