In a tearful apology, a Montco man admitted to killing his wife and was sentenced to life in prison

Exactly two months after he stabbed his estranged wife to death inside the home they once shared, Kenneth Shea walked into a Montgomery County courtroom on Monday and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.

In a tearful apology to the family of his wife, Elizabeth, Shea expressed remorse for the “terribly agony” he had caused them, especially her three sons.

“Regardless of my state of mind at relevant times, my actions speak for themselves,” said Shea, 37. “I’m so sorry, to everyone, especially Liz. I can never make this up to her.”

As Shea accepted responsibility for his crime before more than two dozen people who gathered in a Norristown courtroom to hear him plead guilty, Montgomery County Court Judge William Carpenter sentenced him to life in prison.

Elizabeth Shea, 57, was stabbed to death inside her home in the Wyndmoor section of Springfield Township on April 10. Her injuries included shallow cuts that prosecutors said were intended to torture her. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The previous day, she had filed for divorce, moving to end a relationship that prosecutors described as abusive.

Assistant District Attorney Tanner Beck said Monday that he and the victim’s family were grateful that Shea pleaded guilty to avoid a trial at which prosecutors would have sought the death penalty.

“This is a great outcome,” Beck said, in part because it gave the family “closure as quickly as possible.”

Shea’s attorney, Frank Genovese, said his client wanted to spare his wife’s family the trauma of a lengthy murder trial.

“He wanted to have this case resolved and put behind the victim’s sons,” the lawyer said. “For him, it brought a lot of comfort knowing he could give them that small measure of finality.”

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On March 14, the eve of the couple’s one-year wedding anniversary, Shea told police her husband had attacked her months earlier in their home, choking her for 30 minutes. She told investigators she believed she was going to die that night, court records show. The next day, Shea got an emergency restraining order and had her husband evicted with the help of police.

She had known Kenneth Shea for several years, having hired him to work with her at Lucky Dogz, the pet-grooming business she ran. The two grew close, and eventually began a romantic relationship and married.

After he moved out, Shea lived in a Comfort Inn in Feasterville. And while he was there, prosecutors said, he searched Google with queries including “who gets your house when your wife dies.”

Just after midnight on April 10, he ordered an Uber to take him from the hotel to his former home in Wyndmoor and broke in by pushing in a window-mounted air-conditioning unit.

After killing his wife, Shea submerged several electronic devices, including hard drives storing footage from the home’s surveillance cameras, in water.

Elizabeth Shea was found dead behind a locked door. Her husband was recorded on surveillance footage from the Comfort Inn returning to the hotel at 3 a.m.

Hours later, detectives arrested him as he left his room there. Inside, they found bloodstains on the mattress, as well as clothing matching what he was seen wearing on the hotel’s surveillance footage when he returned earlier that morning.

Elizabeth Shea’s sister, Evelyn Schaible, likened her brother-in-law to a parasite, saying he attached himself to her sister and preyed on her kindness before “stealing her vibrant life away from her family.”

Shea’s middle son, Sean Bradley, and youngest son, Corey Bradley, took turns telling the judge of their loss, and said how life without their mother was a waking nightmare. Her killer, they said, had forever deprived them of sharing important milestones with her.

“I still can’t believe she was taken from me,” Corey Bradley said. “I will never wrap my head around this.”