Husband suspected in woman's death

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. - Maureen Steeves started what seemed like a normal day in suburbia cooking and doing laundry while her estranged husband ran errands and took their two teenage sons to a high school football game.

But later that day she was found unconscious on the kitchen floor. And three days after that, David Steeves took their sons to England on one-way tickets.

Maureen Steeves died at the end of October and an autopsy found the cause of death was potassium cyanide poisoning. Prosecutors say her husband had laced her coffee with the lethal chemical.

Authorities say David Steeves, who was arrested after he returned from England, didn't want to see his wife dating anyone else after they divorced. Prosecutors also have suggested he may have gotten instructions for killing his wife from "The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook," which was found on his laptop computer. Steeves, 43, was charged with second-degree murder in his wife's Oct. 31 death.

He has denied allegations that he poisoned her coffee with cyanide, but Janet Albertson, the Suffolk County district attorney, is confident that authorities have the man who killed Maureen Steeves.

"He gave the police a seven-page written statement confessing his guilt," Albertson said after Steeves was ordered held without bail.

A criminal complaint quotes Steeves as saying: "I sprinkled enough cyanide in her cup of coffee to kill her."

Steeves' lawyer, Joseph Hanshe, contends that the purported confession was the product of hours of abuse and coercion by detectives.

No reason has been given for the breakup of the couple's marriage. Hanshe says Steeves had confided in his wife five years ago that he thought he might be gay, but never acted on his impulses.

ASSOCIATED PRESS