UK Poker Pro Bebb-Jones Battles Extradition For Wife's Murder

The British poker player accused of murdering his wife in Colorado in 1997 has been refused bail while his extradition battle to the US continues. High Court Prosecutor Gemma Lindfield, acting on behalf of the US government, successfully argued that: “He is not a candidate for bail. He has a strong incentive to flee the jurisdiction”.
Marcus Bebb-Jones, 46 was arrested in the UK in September 2009, after the US Government initiated extradition proceeding against the “professional poker player”  with substantial earnings, including a victory at the 2007 Grosvenor Grand Prix for £90,000.
In the time preceding her death, Marcus Bebb-Jones and his wife Sabrina, 31 ran a hotel in Grand Junction, Colorado. Allegedly, he then murdered his wife on September 16 1997, gave “different accounts to various witnesses as to his wife’s whereabouts”, and the next day headed off on a “playboy” weekend to Las Vegas where he spent $5,700 using credit cards in his and Sabrina’s name.
In 2009, Aron Watkins, prosecuting for the US Government told the City of Westminster Coroner’s Court; “Mr Bebb-Jones is sought for the murder of his wife. He is responsible for the murder, and the deliberate concealment of it for many years…He lived a playboy lifestyle in the course of that weekend which culminated in him putting a gun in his mouth and shooting himself in the head. Whether by judgement or design he didn’t cause any life-threatening injuries to himself…The upshot is that the case against him is very strong. This offence is so serious he faces life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.”
It was claimed that between his wife’s disappearance and the discovery of her skull in a field by a Garfield County rancher in 2004, Bebb-Jones “sought no information as to her whereabouts”, and that he can now be matched to “blood deposits” found in his van, and by “particular type of thistles found near the wheel arch” and the field where her skull was found.
The extradition process is likely to take months but, in the meantime a Colorado prosecutor has agreed not to seek the death penalty in line with England’s extradition treaty.