4th husband: Wife innocent in so-called 'black widow' cases

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — She stands convicted in the death of her second husband, and prosecutors have suggested in open court she had something to do with the demise of husbands one and three.

[...] husband No. 4 is bitterly denouncing the Louisiana legal system, saying he's nearly bankrupted himself paying for her legal defense.

Prosecutors in the Raine case spun a lurid yarn of money, infidelity and murder, and Golston said Friday that its proliferation in media and online, where his wife was portrayed as "a black widow," played right into their hands.

[...] police in New Orleans actually jailed her on a murder charge in Smith's death seven years earlier.

Smith had been gunned down just outside the couple's apartment in an all-but abandoned complex in eastern New Orleans, where months earlier, floods following levee failures during Hurricane Katrina had laid waste to everything.

According to testimony from Raine's brother Enoch and two uncles, adopted brother Terry Everette was shaken by Raine's gunshot death.

Even her defense team acknowledged she engineered a forgery scheme to keep Smith's daughter from her share of the benefits.

[...] in echoes of the defense argument, Golston insisted Friday that the murder case was built on hearsay and documents that don't prove guilt.

Raine family members declined comment after sitting through the trial but handed out a prepared statement thanking police and prosecutors, expressing sympathy for Smith's family and saying they will "pursue closure" in James Raine's still officially unsolved death in Mississippi.