A former Air Force cyberwarfare specialist who killed his wife, Andreen McDonald, in a rage and then burned and hid her body has been ordered to pay her family more than $210 million in damages.
A Bexar County jury on Friday ordered former Air Force Reserve Maj. Andre McDonald to pay $110 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages. He was convicted last year of manslaughter and other charges in his wife’s death and is serving a 25-year prison sentence, but he will be eligible for parole in 6½ years.
The jury award comes two years after Andreen’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against McDonald, who battered and killed his wife in their home in northern Bexar County after an argument about the couple’s businesses. The civil court trial lasted three days, and the jury deliberated for less than four hours before handing down its damages award.
Andreen’s mother, Hyacinth Ferron, said in her lawsuit that McDonald’s actions caused her and her now-12-year-old granddaughter a great deal of “mental anguish.”
Ron Salazar, an attorney representing Ferron, said during closing arguments to the civil court jury this week that the lawsuit was a way for Andreen’s family to counter the lies her husband told during his criminal trial in an effort to evade responsibility for her death.
“This trial allows Andreen’s family to set the record straight,” Salazar said. “One day, when (her daughter) looks up her mother on the internet, we want her to see the truth about who Andreen was, and all the fantastic things that she accomplished.”
