Coleman Family Murder Update 1 June

A man charged in the strangling deaths of his wife and their two sons was having an affair with a Florida woman and planned to get a divorce so he could marry her next year, according to court documents released Friday.

Christopher Coleman's alleged girlfriend, Tara Lintz of St. Petersburg, Fla., told investigators that Coleman assured her by e-mail after the May 5 slayings that he was not the killer and had an alibi, according to a newly released affidavit. (Sounds like Scott Peterson calling Amber Frey from his wife's vigil to me.)

Investigators have not publicly offered a possible motive in the killings of Sheri Coleman, 31, and her two sons, 11-year-old Garett and 9-year-old Gavin. Their bodies were found in their Columbia home and Coleman, a 32-year-old former Marine, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in their deaths.

He remains jailed without bond. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 10.

Lintz, identified in court papers as a "good friend" of Sheri Coleman, admitted having a sexual relationship with Christopher Coleman since last November and said he planned to be divorced by June 14, about five weeks after the killings, according to the affidavit. Coleman also admitted the relationship to investigators, the documents say. (Good friends don't sleep with your husband. And a man doesn't leave his wife and family for a woman he's been dating 6 months. He says that to keep her, but they rarely do it. There has to be a deeper reason that caused him to kill his family. Stripper sex is too easy to get, you don't have to murder your family for it.)

Lintz also allegedly told investigators she spoke with Christopher Coleman the night of May 4, just hours before the killings.

A message left by The Associated Press Friday with Coleman's attorney, William Margulis, was not immediately returned.

A woman who answered the telephone Friday at a St. Petersburg, Fla.-area phone listing for a Tara Lintz told the AP it was the wrong number.

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