Annamarie Rintala Murder: How Did She Die? Who Killed Her?

One quiet evening in Spring 2010 in the town of Granby, Massachusetts, Annamarie Rintala was found strangled in her home. It took 4 trials before the person closest to this paramedic was convicted of slaying her, but she finally got some much-needed justice. Both IDs Deadline: Crime With Tamron Hall: The Painted Paramedic and NBCs

One quiet evening in Spring 2010 in the town of Granby, Massachusetts, Annamarie Rintala was found strangled in her home. It took 4 trials before the person closest to this paramedic was convicted of slaying her, but she finally got some much-needed justice. Both ID’s ‘Deadline: Crime With Tamron Hall: The Painted Paramedic’ and NBC’s ‘Dateline: Down the Basement Stairs’ follow the complex judicial process and lay down all the facts minutely. In case you wish to know the identity and current whereabouts of the perpetrator, we’ve you covered.

How Did Annamarie Rintala Die?

Annamarie Rintala (née Cochrane) was born on July 30, 1972, in Springfield in Hampden County, Massachusetts, to Lucy (Martin) and William Cochrane. After graduating from Cathedral High School, she enrolled in a paramedic school in Granby, Connecticut, and also took classes in several institutions such as Springfield College, Notre Dame, American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts, and Master Dive School in Palm Beach, Florida.

Annamarie worked as a paramedic at AMR Ambulance Medical Services in Holyoke and Springfield. She loved her job which constituted of saving lives and helping others in distress. In her leisure, she loved playing golf and traveling, cheering for the Notre Dame football team, clicking pictures, and scuba diving. She fell in love with a fellow paramedic, Cara Lee Rintala, and both of them moved to a home in Granby and adopted a toddler. It was just a normal, happy, little family until disaster befell them.

On March 29, 2010, Cara returned home around 7 pm with their 2-year-old daughter to find Annamarie lying on the floor of their basement. She immediately rushed to a neighbor’s home and asked them to call 911 before going to check up on her partner. The first respondents arriving at the scene witnessed Cara holding the body, and they announced her dead. Though the most astonishing part of the crime scene was that there was paint on the basement floor as well as on the bodies of the victim and her wife.

The respondents described the paint as “white, wet, and shiny.” The medical examiner then found 23 fresh and distinct bruises on Annamarie’s body, including multiple blunt injuries to her head. Her autopsy report confirmed the cause of death to be manual strangulation, corroborated by the wounds around her neck. The officers and medics who’d carried the body had also observed that it was “cold and stiff.”

Who Killed Annamarie Rintala?

The investigators suspected Cara and began to look into her extensively. Throughout her interviews with the police, Cara provided a timeline of her activity on March 29. She had an argument with Annamarie regarding her socializing with a male friend at home in the absence of the latter on the night of March 28. The next day Cara went out at 3 pm with their daughter and the investigators attempted to trace each step by corroborating with surveillance footage and physical evidence.

Cara claimed she visited the Holyoke Mall, which was verified with her being spotted on surveillance a little before 5 pm. She then visited a McDonald’s where surveillance recorded her parking her truck near the rear parking lot and disposing of several items in a trash can. She then went on to visit a grocery store and another local restaurant before returning home. A state trooper went over to check the trash at the McDonald’s on March 30 and retrieved 3 rags, one of which reportedly contained a “faint bloodstain.”

This bloodstain went on to become the biggest breakthrough on the part of law enforcement. Massachusetts State Police crime laboratory ran an analysis of the bloodstain and concluded the victim was a potential contributor. The prosecution alleged that Cara and Annamarie had “an acrimonious, at times violent, marriage” which resulted in the former strangling her wife in March 2010. She allegedly then disposed of the evidence by driving around all day and texting and calling the victim all the time to “demonstrate that she believed the victim was alive.”

It was also alleged that Cara poured the paint before the first respondents arrived at the scene to eliminate whatever forensic evidence was there and to convolute the crime further. She was indicted on a first-degree murder charge of the 37-year-old Annamarie in October 2011. Her ensuing first trial in 2013 as well as her second trial in 2014 both ended in mistrials because the jury members could not reach a unanimous verdict – they deadlocked on what to do. Her third trial in 2016 was much different as it resulted in her being convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, yet this verdict was soon overturned.

In the end, following 56-year-old Cara’s fourth trial and 2½ days of jury deliberation, she was found guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter on October 5, 2023. She was subsequently sentenced to 12-14 years behind bars, with credit for the 7½ years she’d already served before she’d got to go home on a $50,000 cash bail in November 2021, awaiting this fourth trial.

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