Harold Henthorn in legal battle to keep $1.5m life insurance after 'murdering second wife'

• Harold Henthorn is charged with murdering his second wife in criminal trial which will also hear that he killed his first wife
• Both died in freak 'accidents' to which he was sole witness and FBI spent months investigating second death before he was charged
• Court papers disclose he is trying to keep $1.5 million paid when second wife - Dr Toni Jill Bertolet - plunged 140ft to her death in Rockies
• Civil case in Douglas County, Colorado comes ahead of May criminal trial

By Laura Collins For Dailymail.com

Published: 08:42 EST, 24 February 2015 | Updated: 09:06 EST, 24 February 2015

‘Double wife killer’ Harold Henthorn is fighting to keep a $1.5million life insurance payout from a policy taken out on his second wife, whom he is accused of murdering.

Henthorn was charged with the murder of second wife, Toni Bertolet, 51, last November and police have reopened their investigation into the suspicious death of his first wife some 20 years earlier.

Both women died in ‘freak’ accidents to which Henthorn, 59, was the sole witness. Dr Toni Jill Bertolet plunged 140ft to her death shortly before her 12th wedding anniversary while hiking with Henthorn in a remote stretch of Rocky Mountain National Park.

Lynn Rishell - his first wife - was crushed to death under the front of Henthorn’s Jeep when, he told first responders, the jack gave way as she reached under the vehicle for a lug night while changing a flat tire in the dark.

In both cases Henthorn was named as the sole beneficiary in a string of lucrative life insurance policies totalling $500,000 on the death of his first wife and $4.5million on the death of his second.

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Married: Harold and Toni Henthorn with their daughter. The couple were married for 12 years and her life was insured against death when she feel 140ft and died in the Rockies. He claimed it was an accident

Scene: Deer Mountain in the Rocky Mountains National Park in Colorado, where the couple were hiking at the time of the 'freak accident' which claimed her life. He is now on trial for murder

First wife: Harold and Lynn Henthorn on their wedding day. She died in what he said was a freak accident but his trial for the alleged murder of his second wife will hear claims the 'accident' was also murder

Now court documents seen by DailyMail.com and filed as part of a civil case in Colorado have revealed that Henthorn is fighting a case brought by American General Life Insurance Company for a $1.5million policy taken out on Dr Bertolet.

Submitted to the court as Exhibit A, the policy gives the reason for taking out such a substantial coverage as ‘Estate planning and income protection/planning to have children’.

Henthorn has not relinquished the claim he made in September 2013, one year after his wife’s death the previous September. He cited cause of death as ‘Accidental Fall.’ At the time of making this claim Henthorn was unaware that he was under investigation by the FBI who painstakingly scrutinized every aspect of the widower’s life across two years before swooping and arresting him in November last year.

But an autopsy carried out on Dr Bertolet had already concluded that she ‘died as a result of multiple blunt force injuries when she fell or was pushed down a cliff’. The manner of death was noted as ‘undetermined,’ by the coroner who stated: ‘Homicide cannot be excluded.’

Now, in its case against Henthorn, American General Life Insurance Company has asked the court to decide what should be done with the $1.5million currently being held by the court.

And shockingly, in a separate motion, court documents filed just last week show that Henthorn fought his late wife’s family to have funds from Dr Bertolet’s estate released into his possession. As well as owning her own successful practice, ophthalmologist Dr Bertolet had two further life insurance policies taken out in her name.

Last February the District Court of Douglas County, Colorado found in her family’s favor and barred Henthorn from accessing his late wife’s estate on the grounds that allowing him to do so posed an ‘imminent risk of substantial harm…to [its] financial interests.’

But newly filed documents reveal that Henthorn attempted to have these funds released into his possession as recently as December.

He only finally failed in his bid last month, when a court denied him access to the funds, and demanded that he appoint a forensic accountant to detail the contents of his late wife’s estate.

Last month DailyMail.com revealed that, in 2009, Henthorn also took out a life insurance policy on his sister-in-law Grace Rishell who was married to his first wife’s brother.

Verdict: Harold and Toni Henthorn before her death. An autopsy carried out on Dr Bertolet concluded that she ‘died as a result of multiple blunt force injuries when she fell or was pushed down a cliff’.

Survived: Toni henthorn left behind a daughter, Hayley, who was seven when she died. The $1.5 million policy at the center of the legal dispute was for ‘estate planning and income protection/planning to have children’.

Payout: Harold Henthorn and Lynn, whose death, supposedly when their Jeep fell on top of her while jacked up, resulted in $500,000 in insurance payouts. It is not known if this is the car which claimed her life

Grace Rishell was going through a divorce and ‘concerned for her financial stability,’ when she initially agreed to Henthorn taking out a policy that would pay $50,000 to Grace’s brother and each of her four daughters for a total of $250,000.

According to prosecutors in Dr Bertolet’s murder case, ‘the evidence will show that Henthorn had a romantic interest in Rishell’. But Rishell had a change of heart in spring 2010 and told the insurance agent to stop the policy from going through. Instead she took out a policy of her own with another insurer.

Unbeknownst to her ‘her signature was forged to procure the original policy as well,’ with Henthorn making payments on the policy until December 2012 and listing himself as sole beneficiary.

The policy was cancelled in 2013 when the insurer concluded that Henthorn had no insurable interest in Rishell. But the very fact of its existence raises the specter that Henthorn had Rishell in his sights as a third potential victim.

Henthorn was arrested on November 6 when FBI apprehended him as he returned home after dropping his nine-year-old daughter, Hayley, at school. His indictment was the result of a prolonged investigation during which the FBI eavesdropped on his telephone conversations, combed through his finances, scrutinized his employment history and concluded that the ‘freak’ hiking accident that claimed the mother-of-one’s life was murder.

College days: Harold Henthorn and Lynn Rishell when he was a new geology graduate from Virginia. The couple moved to Colorado, where after 12 years of marriage, she died in a 'freak accident', now said to be murder

He was denied bail by US District Judge Kathleen Latoyfa who described him as a ‘danger’ and said, ‘there are rather glaring similarities between the loss of his first wife and the loss of his second’ and pointed to large sums of money recently transferred by Henthorn to his brother as suggestive that he was ‘hiding funds.’

Though Henthorn claimed to work as a fundraiser for a charity the economic crime auditor for the US Attorney found no evidence that the geology graduate from Virginia had any earnings other than some in 1993, 1999 and 2000.

The only job he appears to have had was one briefly held in the petroleum industry – the job that saw him and his then new bride, Lynn Rishell, move from their hometown of Harrington, Virginia, across the country to Colorado.

The prosecution’s case against Henthorn highlights the similarities between both his wives’ passing – not least the substantial windfall both saw him set to receive.

Both ‘freak accidents’ occurred at remote locations with Henthorn the lone witness. Both occurred after about 12 years of marriage and Henthorn told wildly varying stories about both deaths.

Prepared: Harold Henthorn was said to have made nine different trips to the area around Rocky Mountain Park in the summer before his wife died

According to prosecution documents Henthorn even told a Sunday school class that his first wife died of cancer and that she lost a baby she was carrying to chemotherapy.

In the case of his second wife, two years before her death Dr Bertolet almost died when she was struck by a wooden beam Henthorn had thrown off the deck of their cottage. After that incident Henthorn joked to friends, ‘I was trying to kill my wife.’

Investigators have also established that Henthorn ‘extensively scouted’ the fatal hike trail. Contrary to what he told law enforcement he made nine different trips to the area around Rocky Mountain Park that summer.

The fortnight before their anniversary – the date of her death – Henthorn had hiked six trails to ‘find the perfect one for the trip.’ And damningly a map found in his car showed the spot where Dr Bertolet fell to her death, marked with a pink X.

In both Lynn Rishell and Dr Toni Jill Bertolet’s deaths Henthorn was eager to have his wives’ bodies cremated quickly despite family requests against it and, disturbingly, he spread both women’s ashes on the same mountain near Ouray, Colorado.

A hearing for the civil case is scheduled for April while a trial date of May 4 -15 has been set for the murder case to which Henthorn has entered a not guilty plea.