FAIRFIELD — Tina Lunney stared straight ahead, stone-faced as a jury in Newark convicted her today of murdering her mother. She showed no reaction as the judge revoked her bail or as officers handcuffed her and removed her from the packed courtroom.

Lunney has remained impassive throughout her three-week murder trial as witness after witness pieced together a profile of a troubled middle-class suburban wife and mother whose gambling plunged her family into bankruptcy, who cheated on her husband with a local police officer and who, on the morning of July 22, 2009, took one of her husband’s neckties and strangled her mother.

The slight 45-year-old Lunney, who wore conservative suits and kept her hair slicked tightly back throughout the trial, was convicted of killing 81-year-old Marie Zoppi, apparently to gain access to Zoppi’s credit cards so she could pay off the family’s debts.

“It’s justice for Marie Zoppi ..., ” Assistant Essex County Prosecutor Dawn Simonetti said after the verdict was announced. “It was nothing less than murder and the jurors got it right today.”

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for a day and a half before returning the verdict. Lunney faces 30 years to life in prison when she is sentenced July 26 before Judge Thomas Moore, who presided over the case.

Marie Zoppi, in this undated photo, was killed in July 2009. A jury today found her daughter, Tina Lunney, guilty of strangling the woman with a necktie.

Zoppi was found dead in the Fairfield home she shared with Lunney and her husband, Chris, and the couple’s two children. Lunney confessed to the killing and to staging the scene to look like a suicide in an eerily casual and matter-of-fact 45-minute interview with police, which was played for the jury during the trial.

Her attorney, Albert Kapin, who said he plans to appeal the verdict, argued throughout the trial that the confession was false, brought on by the stresses of bankrupting her family, the guilt of having an affair with a local police officer and the shock of finding her mother dead.

A psychologist who saw Lunney in jail and later diagnosed her with bipolar disorder testified that a person in her mental state could have been delusional.

But Simonetti and Assistant Prosecutor Alex Albu presented more than a dozen witnesses who corroborated Lunney’s confession. According to phone records and text messages presented during the trial, Lunney called in late to work the day her mother was killed, telling one co-worker her mother “was acting weird, like depressed.”

Zoppi’s credit cards were used that same morning to make payments to PSE&G, collection agencies and to book a trip to North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

In the interview with police, Lunney told detectives that nothing provoked the attack, calling it “the most bizzarest thing.”

After killing her mother, Lunney dragged the body to the bedroom, locked the door and went to work. When she came home, she told her children and husband that “Nana” was out with her brother so they wouldn’t go looking for her. She then carried on for 24 hours as though nothing had happened, authorities have said.

Then, on the morning of July 23, 2009, Lunney called her husband, hysterical, and told him her mother had committed suicide. She presented him with a note she claimed her mother had written that read: “Tell the kids I love them. You don’t need me.”

Lunney disappeared the next day. Her husband, in a bizarre twist, filed a missing person’s report that morning with the Fairfield police officer with whom Lunney been having an affair.

Chris Lunney testifies during ex-wife's trial 4 Gallery: Chris Lunney testifies during ex-wife's trial

In her three days on the lam, Lunney went to the Bloomfield library where she wrote goodbye notes to family and friends.

In one letter to her husband that was read to the jury, she says, “Things will be better now … I’m sorry I caused you this pain. Don’t be sad. Be strong for the kids. Remember (their) birthday.”

She also traveled to Atlantic City, where surveillance footage showed her at Trump Marina casino. When she returned to Fairfield, police picked her up and she immediately confessed to the murder.

Outside of the courtroom today, Fairfield Deputy Police Chief Anthony Manna said the verdict brought resolution to the town’s first homicide in nearly 20 years.

"The jury processed everything they were given and we got justice," Manna said.

Zoppi's daughter-in-law, who who attended every day of the trial, tearfully left the courtroom without commenting.

Simonetti called Lunney’s ex-husband, Chris, who still lives in Fairfield with his two teenage children. According to Simonetti, Chris Lunney’s response was, simply: “Justice was served.”

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