Erica Stefanko gets life in prison for luring murdered Army vet Ashley Biggs to her death with bogus

A WOMAN convicted of making a bogus Domino's pizza delivery call to lure an Army veteran to her death has been sentenced to life in prison.

Erica Stefanko, 38, was issued the sentence during a court hearing in Cleveland, Ohio on Tuesday afternoon for the role she played in the 2012 slaying of 25-year-old Ashley Biggs.

At the time of her death Biggs, who was working as a Domino's delivery driver, was embroiled in a bitter custody dispute with her ex and Stefanko's then-husband, Chad Cobb.

At the request of Cobb, Stefanko made a bogus pizza order under an alias and lured Biggs to a closed business in New Franklin, on June 20, 2012.

Cobb then ambushed Biggs, the mother of his seven-year-old daughter, in the parking lot outside the business, where he assaulted her and then strangled her to death.

Stefanko and Cobb then dumped Biggs’ body in a cornfield field before they returned home and washed off evidence of the crime, Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh said.

Biggs' body was discovered the next day. Police found Cobb hiding in a nearby wooded area and took him into custody shortly afterward.

'THEY'RE COMING FOR ME'

Cobb - who had a history of domestic violence allegation related to Biggs - pleaded guilty in the case in 2013 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Stefanko wouldn't be arrested for her alleged role in the sickening crime for another six years when police said new evidence came to light implicating her as an accomplice.

The breakthrough in the case came via a secretly recorded call between Stefanko and Cobb's mother, Cindee, who testified that Stefanko admitted to ordering the pizza and trying to cover up the killing.

“Every time I hear a siren, I think, ‘They’re coming for me,’” Stefanko told Cobb, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.

“I carried out my part. I did exactly what he told me to do,” she continued, adding the pair plotted to kill Biggs to prevent her from getting custody of Cobb's daughter.

At one point in the recording, Stefanko alleged that Cobb told her he wanted to save Biggs’ skull “as a trophy.”

FAKE PIZZA ORDER

Prosecutors said Stefanko was with Cobb when she made the pizza order - a large half-mushroom, half-pepperoni pie.

She gave a fake name to the operator and an address for a closed business.

Stefanko left Cobb alone in the parking lot as he carried out the killing.

Cobb then placed Bigg's body in the back of the Army veteran's car and drove to a cornfield, with Stefanko, Cobb's daughter, and her four children following behind in her car.

He then ditched Bigg's vehicle and Stefanko drove them home, where they both showered to clean themselves of any evidence.

Both Biggs’ daughter, then 15, and Cobb testified against Stefanko during her trial in November last year.

'SHE MADE ME EAT DOG FECES'

Cobb's daughter described Stefanko as mentally and physically abusive.

"She would tell me if I told my dad what she was doing to me, she would do worse,” the girl told the court.

"I remember she would hold me on the ground and she would hit me, and then she also before made me eat dog feces."

When asked by the court why, she responded: "Because she was jealous of my relationship with my father.”

The teen added that she had been in the backseat of a car in a "pitch black location" when she heard Stefanko place an order for a pizza under a fake name.

She said she fell asleep in the car and later woke up the next morning in her great-grandparent's house.

LIFE IN PRISON

Cobb testified in the trial from prison via video link.

He said he'd been "walking around in circles" near a tree in the parking lot, dressed in camouflage, while he waited for Stefanko to make to place the bogus order.

"Is it fair to say that Ashley did not leave the parking lot alive that night?" assistant prosecutor Brian LoPrinzi asked.

"Yes sir, that is accurate," responded Cobb.

Stefanko was found guilty of murder and aggravated murder.

At her sentencing hearing, she spoke briefly to the judge insisting it wasn't "helpful" for Biggs' family and friends to allow Cobb to "place the blame on me for his actions."

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"I was most certainly my worst self during my relationship with Chad. I've never been a hateful person. I would never want what happened to Ashley Biggs regardless of what people heard on [the secret recording]."

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