Woman discovers husband is a murderer weeks after wedding

Paul Steven Mack. Screenshot / Oxygen

When Margie Danielsen met Sean Paul Lanier in a bar during a night out in the US city of Salt Lake City, she had no idea that just three months ago he had been the main suspect in the murder of an aspiring model.

Or that his name wasn't really Sean Paul Lanier, and that he was suspected of involvement in the killing of not one, but two young women.

Danielsen's first impression of Lanier was that he was "very charming", she told Oxygen crime documentary Charmed To Death.

"I noticed a gentleman at the bar, he was very good-looking," she said.

The recently divorced mother-of-three, then 37, was smitten when Lanier, who claimed he was a chef, turned up to their first date with a bunch of roses.

But two months into dating, things took a turn when Lanier admitted to breaking into her family home, prompting Danielsen to end things with him.

But after she dumped Lanier, he came back to her with devastating news – his daughter had died in an accident.

The couple reconciled and Lanier proposed a year into dating. Not long after they married, he tried to take over her money, prompting Danielsen to become suspicious and go through his things.

"I noticed on his daughter's death certificate the date she died was wrong," she said. "There's some misspelled words, and there wasn't a state seal."

Margie Danielsen. Screenshot / Oxygen

In response, Lanier had an extraordinary excuse - he was in New Zealand's witness protection programme due to threats from the mafia.

But the truth was actually far more sinister, with Danielsen finding out her husband's real identity when she picked up the phone in March 1987, just weeks after their wedding.

'How could he?'

A friend had called her with horrifying news - they had spotted Lanier on an episode of America's Most Wanted.

Except he wasn't called Lanier, he was actually Paul Steven Mack, a man wanted by police over his suspected involvement in the killing of two young women, Annette Huddle and Karen Winslett.

"How could he live with me and my daughters knowing that he had killed two other girls that look like my daughters and practically the same age?" Danielsen said.

"I'll never understand it."

But rather than confront Mack over his real identity, Danielsen decided to keep investigating her husband.

"I remembered he'd told me he worked at Marion Country Club," Danielsen said, revealing how she had called the venue under the pretence of getting an employment reference.

"She said, 'I've never heard of a Sean Paul Lanier, Sean Paul Lanier has never worked here.'"

Danielsen also found two social security numbers in his wallet and saved a glass with his fingerprints, which she turned over to police.

Annette Huddle. Screenshot / Oxygen

"I [had] seen on TV that you can get fingerprints from glasses," she told a 2014 Investigation Discovery documentary.

"So I put on my rubber gloves and I put the glass in a plastic bag."

Mack was arrested soon after the episode of American's Most Wanted aired due to Danielsen's help.

He was eventually convicted of first degree murder in 1998 over the 1987 death of Winslett, who he had lured to his home under the pretence of shooting a beer commercial.

Mack had also been married before - seven times.

There was a lack of physical evidence to tie him to the death of Huddle, a 19-year-old who had worked with Mack at Marion Country Club and complained about how "gross" he was before she died in 1981.

However, his solicitor later told Huddle's family Mack had confessed to her murder shortly before his own death in 2018.

Danielsen went on to write a book about her experience in 2005 called Tainted Roses: I Married America's Most Wanted.