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Thadius W. McGrath, 37, was convicted of the 2022 murder of Samantha Jean Rementer on Tuesday, April 16, said the Bucks County District Attorney's Office in a release.
Authorities said previously that McGrath killed Rementer in front of her two children in Northampton Township then tried to take his own life on June 8, 2022.
Police arrived at the Clark Court scene to find one of Rementer's children, then 4 years old, "covered in blood," the DA's Office said. The other child was found in a high chair.
Prosecutors said Rementer was found dead on the floor of a rear bedroom with head injuries and an electrical cord wrapped around her neck. In court on Tuesday, a forensic pathologist testified she fought for her life and was strangled for "more than five minutes."
McGrath was found in a second bedroom with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the face, according to authorities.
He survived but was hospitalized with "permanent injuries," the DA's Office said.
Rementer's 4-year-old child later told investigators the couple was arguing before McGrath beat and strangled her mother.
Prosecutors also played audio from a prison phone call from McGrath to his father, in which McGrath admitted the killing was premeditated.
“It very, very much is first-degree murder,” he told his father on the phone, according to the DA's Office.
“The facts of this case are simply heinous and what this family went through is heart-wrenching,” District Attorney Jennifer Schorn said. “It takes a particular level of evil to commit such a horrendous murder in front of the victim’s small children.”
McGrath was convicted of first-degree murder, two counts of child endangerment, two counts of recklessly endangering another person, and two counts of possession of an instrument of crime.
He was given a mandatory life sentence without parole and consecutive sentences of five to 10 years in state prison and 17 years of probation on the remaining charges, prosecutors said.
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