NEW FLORENCE, Mo. — Friday night's episode of "Dateline" hits close to home for Missourians.
The two-hour mystery, "Secrets of the Snake Farm," airing at 8 p.m. CDT on NBC dives into the murder of a world-renown breeder of rare and exotic reptiles from Montgomery County.
In June 2017, 29-year-old Ben Renick was found shot to death on his reptile farm near New Florence, according to Columbia Missourian reporting. Although police initially believed one of his pythons to be responsible for his killing, witnesses came forward with condemning information about his widow, Lynlee Renick.
Prosecutors in Lynlee Renick's 2021 murder trial told the jury that she killed Ben for his $1 million life insurance policy to save her failing spa business and escape a crumbling marriage.
The Associated Press reported that Lynlee Renick first tried to poison her husband with a narcotics-laced protein drink. The drink, however, left him ill but didn’t kill him.
When that didn't work, Lynlee Renick enlisted her ex-boyfriend Michael Humphrey to join the murder plot. It was Renick, though, who ultimately shot her husband, according to the AP.
Lynlee Renick was convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action against her husband on Dec. 9, 2021. Prosecutors sought a life sentence for her crimes, but a jury on Jan. 24, 2022, sentenced her to just 16 years in prison.
Humphrey, who was convicted of first-degree murder in Ben Renick's death, was sentenced earlier that same month to life in prison for his involvement, the AP reported.
Friday's "Dateline" special will include an all-new interview with lead investigator Corporal Devin Foust, Lynlee Renick, family, first responders and more.
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