Senior Partner
This now-infamous case of alleged murder in Belize is finally set for trial on November 16, 2020 in Grant County, Washington.
The Stritmatter firm represents the adult children of Tim McNamara, who died on Christmas Day 2014 in Belize from a gunshot wound to the back-right side of the head. The person with him that night was his niece and purported wife, Tracy Nessl (who changed her last name to McNamara). She had claimed, among many things, that Mr. McNamara committed suicide.
Mr. McNamara’s children didn’t buy it. After Belize police issued a warrant for Ms. Nessl’s arrest for murder (as alleged in Plaintiffs’ Complaint), they filed a lawsuit in 2015 alleging that Tracy Nessl seduced him to obtain his Grant County properties and killed him to obtain life insurance. They pointed to the bullet wound location, the absence of blood spatter on Mr. McNamara’s right hand, and the position and condition of the pistol at the scene as evidence of murder.
In July 2018, Ms. Nessl attempted to have the case against her thrown out for lack of evidence. Ms. Ralston responded with expert analysis from a thirty-year veteran of the NSA Police Department. The Grant County Prosecutor filed a declaration regarding the ongoing investigation into Ms. Nessl and an active warrant in Belize. The Stritmatter firm also filed deposition testimony from witnesses who recall Ms. Nessl telling them not that Mr. McNamara committed suicide, but that he was killed by someone outside the house.
By three-page written opinion, the Grant County Superior Court judge denied Ms. Nessl’s motion to dismiss, finding that the evidence was more compelling than another Washington case, Neslon v. Schubert, where “substantial evidence” supported a jury finding that a man killed his wife.