Man convicted of murdering estranged wife in her Upper West Side apartment

Wednesday, March 13, 2019
NEW YORK (WABC) -- A man was convicted Wednesday in the murder of his estranged wife in her Upper West Side apartment in 2009.

The jury found 46-year-old Roderick Colvin guilty of second-degree murder in the strangling of Shele Covlin.

Her body was found face down in the bathtub by their 9-year-old daughter. Prosecutors said Covlin killed her and then staged the scene to look like a bathtub drowning.

It happened one day before Shele Covlin was reportedly going to cut him out of her will.

Her death was ruled accidental until her body was exhumed a year later.

Roderick Covlin was arrested and charged with murder, two months before he was set to inherit her multi-million dollar estate.

Shele Covlin, 47, was a money manager at UBS, part of a finance family in which she worked alongside her brother and father. Her 42-year-old husband, known as Rod, had been a trader and was a noted figure in the backgammon world, having helped found the U.S. Backgammon Federation.

Roderick Colvin will be sentenced April 10.

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