NEWTON — After spending three years in jail awaiting trial on charges he murdered his wife by stabbing her 47 times, Valentino Ianetti is a free man.

Ianetti, 63, was released from the Sussex County jail Wednesday after the prosecutor’s office, unable to prove its case, requested that all criminal charges against the former Stanhope resident be dismissed.

Ianetti’s attorney, public defender Steven Insley, said the prosecutor’s about-face bolsters the claim Ianetti has made since Dec. 8, 2009, when Pamela Ianetti’s lifeless, blood-soaked body was found in the couple’s single-family home on New Street: His wife of 37 years had killed herself.

All but one of the stab wounds on Pamela Ianetti’s body were found to have been superficial — “hesitation wounds” she inflicted on herself as she worked up the courage to exact a fatal blow — Insley said. She also had ingested enough oxycodone that she was likely on the way to an overdose, he said.

“She had taken between 20 and 40 pills. If not for stabbing herself, she might’ve died just from the drugs she had taken,” said Insley, citing what he said was forensic evidence recently uncovered by his office. “She probably wasn’t feeling the stab wounds.”

But the county’s medical examiner continues to maintain Pamela Ianetti was the victim of a homicide and the case remains under investigation, Sussex County First Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Mueller said. Charges against Valentino Ianetti could be reinstated, he said.

“Because some reasonable doubt currently exists, this office felt it was appropriate to dismiss the indictment pending further investigation. We have not concluded necessarily that this was a suicide, only that there is some reasonable doubt at this time,” Mueller said.

While Pamela Ianetti had a prescription for oxycodone, Mueller said, it’s uncertain how much of the painkiller she had ingested before her death.

“There were opiates found in her system. The numbers of pills she took is in question,” he said.

Valentino Ianetti told authorities he found his wife’s body on a bedroom floor of the couple’s Stanhope home. He reported his wife’s death at 2 a.m. on that early December day.

An autopsy determined she had been stabbed nearly four dozen times in the neck and chest, according to the arrest affidavit. Authorities never talked about why Valentino Ianetti may have killed his wife.

Although investigators questioned him for 20 hours, he always maintained his wife killed herself.

The Ianettis moved to Stanhope 30 years ago, having begun their married life in the Lake Hiawatha section of Parsippany, where they ran a company called V&P Home Improvements. Police have said the couple had no history of domestic violence.

Pamela Ianetti had been employed by Morris County for 17 years, including as a nursing supervisor at the former Morris View Nursing Home, in Morris Plains.

In October 2011, Valentino Ianetti rejected a plea deal that called for him to plead guilty to second-degree aggravated manslaughter in exchange for a 25-year prison sentence. His trial on murder charges was to begin Sept. 10.

“He spent 3½ years in jail for a crime he did not commit,” Insley said.

Deputy public defender David Nufrio said he was grateful the prosecutor’s office agreed to take a second look at the case.

"They did the right thing. It was appropriate because someone's life was at stake," he said.

In the meantime, Valentino Ianetti, who is now living with friends, is rebuilding his life, Nufrio said.

“He lost family members, his house and his wife,” he said. “He’s virtually going to have to put his life back together again.”

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