Millionaire architect Michael Morton jailed for seven years for manslaughter of wife Gracia during 'sudden flare-up'.
Millionaire architect Michael Morton was jailed for seven years at the Old Bailey yesterday after being found responsible for the death of his wife.
Morton, 67, was cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter after his Argentinian-born wife Gracia disappeared over eight years ago.
Judge Jeremy Roberts, sentencing, said Morton had lashed out in a “sudden flare-up”, understood to be during a row over the schooling of their daughter.
The architect, who had been married twice before, is alleged to have hid his wife’s body and has refused to divulge the body’s whereabouts. Because of this, Roberts said he had put her family through “years of agonising as to what had happened to her”.
The row started because Morton’s wife, who was 19 years younger than her husband, wanted the couple’s four-year-old to attend private school, whereas Morton was adamant that she should go to a state school.
The couple had been in the midst of a bitter divorce after Mrs Morton left her husband nine months before she was killed. The judge said that Morton had been in “mental turmoil”.
Police have said her body may have been disposed of locally by her husband who had a professional knowledge of building work.
