Before the news that made global headlines broke, Anthony Theodorou was nothing more than an ordinary South African expat pursuing a better life in the United States (US).
How is Anthony Theodorou linked to US murder plot?
However, according to a report by the Mercer County Outlook, the 33-year-old South African is listed as one of three suspects in the death of a man named Timothy Hovanec.
Based on information obtained from Auglaize County court records, Hovanec was last seen alive on Sunday 24 April 2022.
At the time, the State Department employee from Washington DC was dropping off his two children, aged five and eight, at his estranged wife’s residence on Middle Pike Road, in Wapakoneta, Ohio.
Two days later, WHIO TV reports, the hotel Hovanec was staying at contacted authorities to raise concern about his whereabouts when he had not turned up at reception to check out.
A search effort was conducted by Wapakoneta police and sure enough, Hovanec’s lifeless body was discovered “in a rural area of Auglaize County.”
According to court records, the estranged wife, Amanda Hovanec, was immediately listed as a prime suspect and, on Thursday 28 April 2022, she was arrested and charged with murder.
Amanda’s mother, 61-year-old Anita Green was also nabbed for her alleged role in Hovanec’s death. Court records show that Green allegedly helped Amanda move her estranged husband’s body to the garage, only moments after she had taken the children into the house.
“Green drove Amanda and Anthony to dispose of the body,” a court affidavit reads.
South African-born expat Theodorou, it’s believed, supplied Amanda with the synthetic opioid concoction that was used to kill Havonec. He too, along with Green, has been charged with first-degree murder.
After a court appearance on Monday, the trio was out on $2 million (est. R31.6 million) bail but only for a short while until they were taken into custody by the FBI.
Per Mercer County Outlook, Amanda, her mother and Theodorou are being held at he Lucas County Jail in Toledo pending the transfer to a federal facility.
The case has since been taken over by the FBI.
