The Nation - News from April 28, 1988

A $1-million lottery winner was injured, her husband was killed, and their niece, who stood to receive inheritance money, was jailed in what police said was a murder-for-hire scheme. Linda Heredia, 34, a nurse in San Antonio, Tex., was being held in the Bexar County Jail on charges of capital murder. Henry Bellettini, 38, and Joe Hernandez, 17, also were jailed on similar charges. The three are charged in the death of Armando Vasquez, 66, of Middletown Township, N.J., and the beating of his wife, Norma, 67, while they were visiting Heredia. Police said Heredia hired the men to kill her aunt and uncle and to make it look like a robbery-killing. Norma Vasquez won $1,078,256 in New York’s lottery in 1981.