WESTMINSTER

A college professor from Finksburg has been acquitted of charges that she tried to have her ex-husband killed.

Constance Lee Etzler, 47, was found not guilty of conspiracy and solicitation to commit first-degree murder. Carroll Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. rendered the verdict Thursday after closing arguments in a four-day trial, which was presented before the judge without a jury.

Etzler, a reading and English as a second language instructor at Montgomery College, had been accused of asking a former lover to help her kill her ex-husband, William Etzler, by placing cans of gasoline under a PennSylvania hunting cabin in the expectation that a cigarette would ignite the fuel.