A Salem man who strangled his estranged wife in her apartment while two of their five children and their grandchildren were in the next room has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Following a 7-day trial, a Salem Superior Court jury found Douglas Steeves, 53, guilty of murdering 48-year-old Carmela Saunders on Aug. 2, 2016.
Steeves left the apartment, visited a motorcycle club in Beverly and then went to the Salem police station to report the crime, according to a spokesperson for the Essex County District Attorney’s Office.
Assistant District Attorney A.J. Camelio presented evidence of explicit text messages that Steeves sent to one of his daughters, stating that Saunders’ “days were numbered” in the weeks leading up to her murder.
Saunders had taken out a restraining order against the defendant and had filed for divorce.
“Carmela Saunders was a mother and a grandmother whose life was needlessly, selfishly, and cruelly cut short by this defendant,” Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said in a statement. “While this verdict and sentence provide justice to her family and friends, nothing we do can alleviate their grief and loss.”
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