Alice Uden sat quietly in a wheelchair before speaking at the hearing. She sobbed when speaking about the death of her third husband, Ronald Holtz, then 25.
"I've tried to atone for it," Uden said, according to the AP. "I wish that I never would have met him so that none of this ever would have happened. He was a very frightening man."
The court did not believe Uden's argument that she shot Holtz in the head to defend her toddler daughter from him. She was found guilty of second-degree murder in May.
Uden killed Holtz in late 1974 or 1975 in Cheyenne, where he was living with her and a small child. Uden testified that she shot him with a rifle after he became enraged over the girl's crying and was inches away from attacking her in bed.
Laramie County District Court Judge Steven Sharpe said he considered possible factors, like Uden's lack of prior criminal history.
District Attorney Scott Homar said the killing was a thoughtful, deliberate act that got rid of Holtz.
"Her way out was to take Mr. Holtz's life while he was sleeping and then dispose of it in a way that it wouldn't be found for 39 1/2 years," Homar said.
Police arrested Uden and her fourth and current husband, Gerald Uden, 72, both of Chadwick, Mo. last fall and accused them of killing former spouses in different attacks.
Gerald Uden has pleaded guilty to killing his ex-wife and her two sons in central Wyoming in 1980. Prosecutors have not drawn any link between the two cases.
Alice Uden testified at her trial that she removed Christmas decorations from a large cardboard barrel and put Holtz's body inside. After previous attempts to find Holtz's remains inside a mine filled with dead cattle and other ranch animals, investigators dug deeper into the shaft last summer and found Holtz's remains.
Related Topics
n">(Reuters) - An elderly Missouri woman convicted of killing her husband four decades ago and burying his body in an abandoned Wyoming gold mine was sentenced to life in prison by a Wyoming judge on Monday, a prosecutor said.
Laramie County District Attorney Scott Homar had sought a minimum of 20 years in prison for Alice Uden, 75, of Chadwick, Missouri, while her lawyer argued for a suspended sentence that would see her get probation. But the state judge opted for life.
Uden, who ultimately remarried and was living quietly in Missouri when she was arrested a year ago, was found guilty in May of second-degree murder in the shooting death in Wyoming in 1974 or 1975 of Ronald Holtz.
She was arrested alongside her second husband, Gerald Uden, who was himself convicted last year of the 1980 killing of his ex-wife and her two young sons, and sentenced to life in prison. Court documents do not explain if there was any connection between the murders of their spouses and their later marriage.
Prosecutors said Alice Uden used a rifle to shoot her first husband of several months in the back of the head while he slept, but defense attorneys argued she killed him after he flew into a rage and threatened to harm her toddler daughter.
The defense on Monday urged the court to consider the message it was sending to society in handing down a punishment for a woman who was old and sick and had killed her abusive husband in self-defense, according to Homar.
“I told the court the message we don’t want to send to society is that you cover up a crime long enough and you’ll get away with it with very little punishment,” he said.
Allegations about Holtz’s death emerged during a probe by a Wyoming cold case team into the disappearance of Gerald Uden's ex-wife, Virginia, and her sons.
A witness in that investigation said Gerald Uden's current wife, Alice Uden, had confessed to shooting Holtz, stuffing his body into a barrel and burying it in an abandoned mine on Wyoming ranchlands.
Alice Uden divorced Holtz in 1975 in a default judgment after he could not be located. Wyoming authorities recovered his remains last August and found he had died of a gunshot to the head.
Alice Uden’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Gunna Dickson)
Woman, 75, gets life term for killing husband
Alice Uden listens to the judge during jury selection at the Laramie County District Court in Cheyenne, Wyo. A judge sentenced Uden to life in prison on Monday for killing her husband with a rifle in the mid-1970s and throwing his body down the shaft of an abandoned gold mine, where it remained for nearly 40 years. (Photo: Miranda Grubbs AP)
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A judge in Wyoming sentenced a 75-year-old Missouri woman to life in prison on Monday for killing her husband with a rifle in the mid-1970s and throwing his body down the shaft of an abandoned gold mine, where it remained for nearly 40 years.
Defendant Alice Uden wore wire glasses, a court-supplied hearing aid and a blue suit, and sat quietly in her wheelchair before speaking at the hearing.
She sobbed gently as she addressed the court about the death of her third husband, Ronald Holtz, then 25.
"I've tried to atone for it," Uden said. "I wish that I never would have met him so that none of this ever would have happened. He was a very frightening man."
Jurors in Cheyenne didn't buy Uden's argument that she shot Holtz in the head to defend her toddler daughter from him. In May, they found her guilty of second-degree murder.
Uden killed Holtz in late 1974 or early 1975 in Cheyenne, where he was living with her and her 2-year-old daughter. Uden testified that she shot him with a rifle after he flew into a rage over the girl's crying and was inches away from attacking her in bed.
Laramie County District Court Judge Steven Sharpe said he considered possible mitigating factors, including Uden's lack of prior criminal history.
"This was very much a cold, calculated murder," Sharpe said. "The jury heard all of the evidence that was before the court and the jury rejected the defense that it was self-defense."
District Attorney Scott Homar argued the killing was a thoughtful, deliberate act that rid Uden of Holtz.
"Her way out was to take Mr. Holtz's life while he was sleeping and then dispose of it in a way that it wouldn't be found for 39 1/2 years," Homar said.
Police arrested Uden and her fourth and current husband, Gerald Uden, 72, both of Chadwick, Missouri, last fall in southwest Missouri, accusing them of killing former spouses in separate attacks.
Gerald Uden has pleaded guilty to killing his ex-wife and her two sons in central Wyoming in 1980. Prosecutors have not drawn any link between the two cases.
At her trial, Alice Uden testified that she removed Christmas decorations from a large cardboard barrel and put Holtz's body inside. She wrestled the barrel into her trunk, she said, and dumped the barrel in an abandoned gold mine on a ranch between Cheyenne and Laramie.
One of Uden's sons, Todd Scott, testified at the trial that his mother told him decades ago that she had shot Holtz while he was asleep.
After previous, unsuccessful attempts to find Holtz's remains in the mine filled with the carcasses of cattle and other ranch animals, investigators last summer dug deeper in the vertical shaft and finally excavated Holtz's remains.
The jury declined to find Uden guilty of premeditated, first-degree murder, which would have carried a mandatory life sentence. The jury also declined to convict her of a less-serious charge of manslaughter.
Uden's attorney, Donald Miller, urged the judge to sentence Uden to probation because the now-grown daughter, Erica Prunty, has cancer and has been given six months to live.
He also highlighted the psychiatric history of Holtz, who met Uden, a former nurse, while she was working in the psychiatric unit at a Veterans Administration hospital in Sheridan.
"His behavior was unpredictable. He was irritable, he was hostile, he was explosive. He had no incentive to change," Miller told the courtroom.
Prosecutors in the case against Gerald Uden said the bodies of 32-year-old Virginia Uden, and her two sons, 11-year-old Richard Uden and 10-year-old Reagan Uden, have yet to be found.
Gerald Uden told a Fremont County courtroom in November that he shot each of them with a rifle not far from his home, one after the other, and dumped their bodies in an abandoned mine.
Months later, he said, he retrieved the bodies and sank them in Fremont Lake in western Wyoming. Investigators briefly searched the deep lake for the bodies and say they plan a more comprehensive search soon.
Jurors at Alice Uden's trial were prohibited from hearing about Gerald Uden's case.
www. hattiesburgamerican. com/story/news/crime/2014/08/27/woman-75-life-term/14615599/
No comments:
Post a Comment