Estranged Wife Acquitted Of FBI Agent Ex-Husband's Murder

LAUREL, MD — An Anne Arundel County jury on Nov. 20 acquitted a woman in the March 2017 murder of a retired FBI special agent. Anne Reed Allen, the estranged wife of the victim, Scott Alan Horn, 62, of Laurel, was acquitted on all charges in the death of her husband, who was shot and beaten to death.

Around 9 p.m. on March 16, Laurel Police responded to a report of an unresponsive victim in the 200 block of Patuxent Road. Police found Horn dead with major upper body trauma in the yard behind his home.

Allen was soon identified as the suspect. Prosecutors presented a case based on circumstantial evidence; a second person, Jason Allen Byrd of Westminster, was arrested in July 2017 in Horn’s death but charges against him were later dropped, the Capital reports.

Allen was charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and the use of a handgun in a crime of violence.

“I think the jury faithfully applied the without-a-reasonable-doubt standard and voted to acquit,” Allen's attorney, Andrew Jezic told The Capital. “I don’t know where the jury came down on innocence versus not proven, but we argued pure innocence. We argued there was no motive, no killing in her heart.”

Maryland online court records show that Allen was charged with violating a protective order Horn had against her in August 2016.

A family member told The Baltimore Sun in March that Horn was one of the FBI agents that investigated the 2002 sniper attacks across the DC region.

Image via Laurel Police