In 2018, Shanti Cooper Tronnes suddenly walked out of a meeting with producers for a home-renovation TV show that her husband was keen to star in. A few days later, she was beaten to death.
This week, a Florida jury found her husband, David Trones, guilty of murdering her in anger over her refusal to appear on the show, believing it would save him money on home renovations.
The 55-year-old Tronnes was convicted Wednesday and sentenced to life in prison, local prosecutors said in a statement. The conviction came after a six-day trial whose brutal details drew national attention.
Cooper-Tronnes' son from a previous marriage, Jackson Cooper, testified in court Wednesday before his stepfather's sentencing, likening his mother's murder to “a hole in my heart that can never be filled or fixed.”
David Trones. Photo: Orlando Police Department
Afterwards, at a press conference reported by NBC, Cooper said Tronnes' punishment felt like “five years of anguish and pain lifted off my shoulders.”
“I'm happy in my heart that he's finally where he is,” Jackson Cooper said of the Thrones. “We can move forward knowing he's where he needs to be.”
Cooper Tronnes, 39, met Tronnes online in 2013. She believed he had inherited millions of dollars, and he moved from Minnesota to live with her in Orlando's Delaney Park.
Trones bought the home, which he co-owned with Cooper-Trons, for just over $600,000 in cash in 2015 and put the money into his mother's trust fund, according to CBS News. The two married in 2017, but Trones did not put his wife's name on the title deed to the Victorian home.
The 4,000-square-foot home also had a pool and a garage apartment, and Trones reportedly spent about $250,000 renovating it, a cost covered by Cooper Trones, who ran a lucrative financial software business from his home office.
Mr. Tronnes was unemployed but oversaw renovations that eventually got out of control and caused a rift in the couple's relationship, with Mr. Tronnes sleeping in the garage and his wife staying in a one-room studio on the property, prosecutors said.
Finally, in an attempt to minimize his losses, Trones contacted a local home remodeler who appeared on the reality TV show “Zombie House Flipping,” which details how remodelers take homes in terrible condition — often abandoned — and sell them at a profit.
Renovation contractor Keith Oly told CBS he received approval to use the Tronnes family for the show, and met with them one last time in April 2018 to make sure they were OK with appearing on the show before filming began the following month.
“We both agreed and said, 'Yes, I understand,' and then she quickly left,” Oli recalled. “I could sense that she was angry with him.”
Authorities discovered that Tronnes had beaten and strangled Cooper-Tronnes to death in their bedroom on April 24, 2018. The suspect then reported attempting to clean up the crime scene and discovering his wife's body after she had apparently fallen to her death in the bathtub. The suspect claimed he had been cleaning and walking his dog the day he discovered Cooper-Tronnes' body.
Prosecutors said the coroner found injuries to Cooper-Tronnes's eyes and face, as well as “blood stains,” but these did not corroborate her husband's account. Investigators also said they found it suspicious that Tronnes did not appear to mourn Cooper-Tronnes' death.
Authorities gathered evidence for about four months before arresting Tronnes in the death of his wife. He was charged with first-degree murder and his trial began on October 12.
After hearing the prosecution's case against Tronnes, the jury deliberated relatively briefly – less than five hours – before convicting Tronnes as charged.