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A MOTHER’S horrific murder led authorities to a gruesome scene after they found her young quadruplets covered in her blood.
Dispatcher received a 911 call from a 13-year-old girl on November 7, 1997, saying that she found her mother murdered in their Florida home.
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Sheila Bellush’s life was cut short in front of her two-year-old quadruplets in a murder-for-hire plot detailed in a new true crime series, Blood & Money.
From the creator of the Law & Order franchise, Dick Wolf, the program has similar features as its beloved predecessor – along with the iconic “dun dun” sound effect.
Blood & Money premiered on March 7 and unlike Law & Order, it covers real-life crimes from killers motivated by money and greed.
Sheila Bellush, 35, became known as “Quad Mom” after giving birth to quadruplets with her second husband, Jamie Bellush.
She was home with her young children when a man entered her home and shot and stabbed her to death.
Her daughter came home from school later that day and found her mother’s lifeless body.
“My mom is dead,” the teenager cried, reported the St. Petersburg Times. “There’s blood all over the phone, and there’s a cut on her neck.”
While the early part of the investigation pointed the finger at Jose Luis Del Toro as the killer, authorities were still trying to figure out the link between the attacker and victim.
That’s when investigators learned that Bellush’s ex-husband and father of her two eldest children, millionaire Allen Blackthorne, was behind the murder.
Blackthorne had become upset over a custody battle with Bellush at the time of her death, authorities found.
Prosecutors at the time said Blackthorne offered up $54,000 to have Bellush killed with an added bonus if he was able to regain custody of his two daughters that had been adopted by his ex’s new husband.
Del Toro plead guilty to murder and burglary charges, reported the Tampa Bay Times.
He was sentenced to two life sentences.
Blackthorne was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and interstate domestic violence, reported ABC News.
He died in prison at 59 years old in November 2014.
Two other men, Daniel Rocha and Samuel Gonzales, were also convicted after it was relieved they helped plan Bellush’s murder.
Rocha had been golfing with Blackthorne the day the mother was killed.
“This is not a pretty case,” said federal prosecutor John Murphy at the time.
“It involves an ugly divorce, an ugly relationship, a horrible killing.”
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