Naples woman killed in Arizona tried to flee domestic violence

Naples woman killed in Arizona tried to flee domestic violence, family says
By VICTORIA MACCHI, AISLING SWIFT
Posted December 15, 2011

Amanda Blaies-Rinaldi's family desperately tried to get her away from her abusive husband.

They encouraged the 28-year-old woman to move from Naples to Arizona, where they lived, to put distance between the couple.

"My mom has told her so many times to get away," said her sister Lea Miller, 35. "She kept on saying 'I love him.'"

On Tuesday night in Phoenix, Anthony Rinaldi, 26, shot his wife in their home, left their two sons alone and turned himself in to police.

"She is definitely dead," Rinaldi told an officer he flagged down, according to an arrest report. "I put two to the chest and one to the head."

The couple met in Naples 2½ years ago, where Blaies-Rinaldi grew up, her mother, Pamela Blaies of Arizona, said Thursday in a phone interview.

Blaies-Rinaldi and her twin brother Jonny Blaies attended Barron Collier High School. They left after their junior year to study cosmetology.

She and Anthony Rinaldi knew each other briefly when she became pregnant in 2009, her mother said. Three months later, they married in Naples while Rinaldi was on military leave from his duties as an Army sniper based in Germany.
read more here