A Derry Township man accused of installing a trip wire to cause the fatal fall of his wife three years ago was found not guilty Friday of attempted murder.

Westmoreland County prosecutors claimed William “B.J.” Dankesreiter, 63, spent months plotting his now former wife’s death to end a bad marriage and collect on her life insurance policy.

Laura Dankesreiter told police she nearly tripped over a wire strung by her husband across the bottom of the door frame at the top of the basement stairs.

“Thank God for the jury and my lawyers. They believed in me,” Dankesreiter said as he left the courtroom following the not guilty verdict. “I just want to get it all behind me and start a new life. I waited three years to do so.”

After more than three hours of deliberations, jurors returned not guilty verdicts on charges of attempted homicide, aggravated assault, simple assault and reckless endangerment.

Dankesreiter, through defense attorneys Tim Andrews and Mike Ferguson, said Laura Dankesreiter staged the scene and potentially installed the trip wire to falsely accuse of her husband of the murder plot.

Ferguson said Laura Dankesreiter’s description of how she avoided falling after tripping on the wire that was strung several inches above a carpeted floor using two eye screws and fishing wire was not to be believed.

“From the very beginning, the first time I had a chance to question the victim about the details about the alleged trip, I began to have serious doubts myself about the validity of the claims,” Ferguson said.

During his closing argument to the jury, Ferguson said prosecutors could not prove that William Dankesreiter installed the trip wire and suggested internet searches found on his phone about chloroform and fishing line as part of a murder plot could have been conducted by his wife.

William Dankesreiter did not testify during the trial. The defense’s lone witnesses was a hired biomechanics expert who testified Laura Dankesreiter’s claim that she was able to stop herself from failing down the stairs was not physically possible.

Meanwhile, prosecutors argued that Laura Dankesreiter did not have the mechanical skills to install a trip wire and that her husband was the only other person in the home who had the ability to do so.

Assistant District Attorney Adam Barr told jurors William Dankesreiter was unhappy with his marriage and was suspected of having a romantic affair with a co-worker. He dismissed the defense theory that the murder plot was a setup concocted by Dankesreiter’s wife.

Prosecutors said evidence of William Dankesreiter’s purported affair was found in a backpack that contained condoms and a passport. Investigators said he purchased material used to install the trip wire about two weeks before it was found by his wife. Two years after her husband was charged, Laura Dankesreiter found a bottle of chloroform hidden on a shelf in the basement of the family home, Barr said.

“She didn’t want to believe the man she married 30 years ago had to take her life all over another woman,” Barr said. “Don’t be fooled by ridiculous arguments and conspiracy theories.”

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)