Allen Blackthorne: Trial, Conviction, and Death in Prison

Allen Blackthorne was a wealthy San Antonio medical-device businessman who arranged the November 1997 murder-for-hire of his ex-wife, Sheila Bellush, at her home in Sarasota, Florida. A federal jury in Texas convicted him in July 2000 of interstate conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and interstate domestic violence. He was sentenced to two life terms and died in federal prison in 2014 at age 59.¹²

Who He Was and the Marriage That Ended It

He was born Allen Van Houte in Eugene, Oregon, on June 5, 1955. He legally changed his name to Allen Blackthorne in 1986, shortly after leaving Hawaii with roughly $300,000 in debts, according to prosecutors. He resettled in Texas and made his fortune selling medical devices.¹

Blackthorne married Sheila in 1983 and divorced her in 1987. A decade of bitter litigation over custody of their two daughters and over child support followed. In 1987 he was arrested for and pleaded guilty to beating her, later calling the incident “a very low point” in his life. She accused him of sexually abusing one of the daughters; those charges were dropped. He accused her of abusing the children. She won custody, remarried Jamie Bellush, and had quadruplets, giving the household six children.³

In 1997 the fight escalated. Sheila again raised sexual abuse allegations and sought to end his visitation. He countered by seeking full custody and accusing her and Jamie of abusing one of the girls. After a contentious hearing in which the judge mentioned ordering both families into counseling, Blackthorne abruptly gave up his parental rights, complaining to his secretary that Sheila made “the same false child-abuse accusations” every time they went to court.⁴ Evidence at trial showed he had threatened her life for years. As early as 1985 he told her that if she left him he would kill her, have her killed, or make sure she never walked again.⁵

How the Murder Was Arranged

In July 1997 Blackthorne approached Danny Rocha, a bookmaker and golf companion, and asked him to find someone to assault Sheila. He said he wanted her “crippled in a wheelchair with no tongue” and offered Rocha a 25 percent stake in a planned golf course. He supplied Rocha with $4,000 in cash, a photograph of Sheila, and her home address in Boerne, Texas.⁵

Rocha brought in his friend Sammy Gonzales, who recruited his cousin Jose Luis Del Toro Jr. to carry out the attack. The chain ran Blackthorne to Rocha to Gonzales to Del Toro, deliberately keeping Blackthorne away from the man who would do the violence.⁶

Sheila and Jamie Bellush moved to Sarasota. Blackthorne hired a private investigator, Chuck Chambers, who located her new address and passed it back through the chain.³⁵⁴

The Killing in Sarasota

On November 7, 1997, Del Toro climbed through a window of Sheila Bellush’s Sarasota home. He attacked her in the laundry room, shot her once in the face with a .45 caliber pistol, and when the gun jammed struck her with the weapon and cut her throat with a kitchen knife. A blood trail showed she dragged herself toward the kitchen phone before she died.⁵ Her 13-year-old daughter found the body after school. The 23-month-old quadruplets were unharmed but were found crawling in their mother’s blood.⁷

Del Toro called Gonzales to confirm the killing and drove from Sarasota to Atlanta, then to Austin and San Antonio, before taking a bus to Laredo and crossing into Mexico.⁸ That night Rocha told Blackthorne the job was done. Blackthorne’s reaction, according to trial testimony, was to complain that the conspirators had “messed up” by leaving the body to be found.⁵

Arrests and the Extradition of the Gunman

The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office identified Del Toro quickly after finding his fingerprint on a clothes dryer inside the home and confirming he had stayed at a local hotel the night before the killing.⁷ Rocha and Gonzales were arrested in San Antonio on November 17, 1997, and later indicted by a Texas grand jury for solicitation to commit capital murder. The FBI tracked Del Toro to an apartment in Monterrey, Mexico, and Mexican police arrested him on November 20, 1997.

A 20-month extradition battle followed. Because Mexico does not allow capital punishment, Sarasota prosecutors had to formally waive the death penalty under the 1978 U.S.-Mexico treaty. Del Toro was returned to Florida on July 13, 1999.⁸

The Federal Trial and Life Sentences

Blackthorne was charged in January 2000 with conspiracy to use interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire under 18 U.S.C. § 1958(a) and with causing another to cross state lines to commit domestic violence under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2(b) and 2261(a)(1). The case was tried in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio before Judge Edward C. Prado.⁵

Testimony began June 12, 2000. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Murphy led the prosecution, which alleged Blackthorne offered up to $54,000 to fund the plot and used intermediaries to insulate himself.⁹¹⁰⁵

Defense attorney Richard Lubin called Rocha a “liar” and a “sociopath” and argued Rocha had planned the murder on his own to later extort Blackthorne. Blackthorne testified in his own defense, denying any role but admitting past threats and calling Sheila a “negligent mother.”¹¹⁹

After 33 hours of deliberation, the jury of eight men and four women convicted Blackthorne on both counts on July 6, 2000. Judge Prado sentenced him on December 13, 2001, to two life terms, a $250,000 fine, and $17,000 in restitution. At sentencing, prosecutor Richard Durbin told the court, “Even his name is a lie, chosen to deceive creditors from Hawaii.”¹¹²

What Happened to the Co-Conspirators

Jose Luis Del Toro Jr., the gunman, pleaded guilty in Florida and received two consecutive life sentences. In 2025 he moved to overturn his sentence, arguing the state violated the extradition agreement by adding an armed burglary charge; the motion was denied as procedurally barred.¹¹¹³
Daniel Rocha, the middleman, was convicted in Florida of solicitation of murder and sentenced to life. He recanted his trial testimony against Blackthorne in a 2000 affidavit, at least the third time he had changed his story. In 2019 he sought a sentence reduction hearing and withdrew the motion during the hearing itself; his life sentence stands.¹⁴¹⁵
Sammy Gonzales, who recruited Del Toro, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 19 years.²

Appeals

The Fifth Circuit affirmed Blackthorne’s conviction on May 3, 2002. The Solicitor General’s office, under Theodore B. Olson, opposed his petition for certiorari in December 2002, arguing the case raised no circuit split and only fact-specific claims.⁵⁴

Blackthorne then filed a second Rule 33 motion for a new trial based on a civil deposition of Del Toro. He argued Del Toro claimed he had not intended to kill Sheila when he traveled to Florida, and that Del Toro and Gonzales were using cocaine during the planning. On July 15, 2004, the Fifth Circuit rejected the motion. The court held that the government’s conspiracy case rested on the agreement between Blackthorne and Rocha, so Del Toro’s state of mind was immaterial, and the cocaine evidence was cumulative impeachment material.⁶

Civil Suit and Hidden Assets

In November 1998, Sheila Bellush’s survivors sued Allen Blackthorne, his wife Maureen Blackthorne, and others for wrongful death. Plaintiffs alleged that twelve days after the murder, Allen transferred his stock in International Rehabilitative Sciences to Maureen to keep it out of creditors’ reach. The trial court froze the stock, and a Texas appellate court upheld the injunction in July 2001.¹⁶

In September 2001, a Texas judge lifted the freeze to allow an out-of-court settlement. Blackthorne’s holdings in RM Medical had been estimated at about $4.5 million, and the proceeds were distributed among Sheila’s six children, Jamie Bellush, and other family members. Attorney Ken Nunley, representing Jamie Bellush, said, “Our first mission was to do everything we could to get Allen Blackthorne convicted. The secondary mission was, if we were ever able to trap any proceeds, to get every dollar we could.” Jamie Bellush was raising the six children in New Jersey.¹⁷

Maureen Blackthorne, Allen’s fourth wife and a native of Venezuela, was convicted in 2005 of filing a false tax return for 1999, part of a case accusing the couple of hiding more than $1.6 million in income over four years. She received a one-year federal sentence and had filed for divorce in November 2004.¹⁸

Death in Prison

Allen Blackthorne died on November 18, 2014, at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was 59. The Bureau of Prisons confirmed his death but did not release a cause.¹⁹

1
CBS News. Texas Man Guilty in Murder-for-Hire
2
Sentinel Colorado. Ex-Millionaire Who Plotted Ex-Wife’s Murder Dies
3
CBS News. Who Is Allen Blackthorne
4
U.S. Department of Justice. Blackthorne v. United States – Opposition
5
U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. United States v. Allen Blackthorne
6
Justia. United States v. Allen Blackthorne, 378 F.3d 449
7
Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Sheila Bellush’s Murder To Be Featured on CNBC Series
8
Tampa Bay Times. Slaying Saga Twists, Turns
9
ABC News. Millionaire Convicted in Wife’s Murder
10
Tampa Bay Times. Whom To Believe Is Key for Blackthorne Jury
11
Tampa Bay Times. Case Closed
12
Northern Nevada Business Weekly. Millionaire Gets Life in Prison in Ex-Wife’s Slaying
13
MySuncoast. Man Serving Life in 1997 Quad Mom Murder Loses Bid To Overturn Sentence
14
The Ledger. Man Who Testified Against Blackthorne Recants Story
15
WFLA. Danny Rocha Asks for Sentence Reduction Hearing, Then Has Change of Heart
16
FindLaw. Blackthorne v. Bellush
17
Tampa Bay Times. Slain Mom’s Family To Receive Assets
18
Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Wife of Man Convicted in Sarasota Murder Gets 1 Year
19
San Antonio Express-News. Former S.A. Millionaire Who Hired Hitman To Kill Ex-Wife Dies in Prison