The wife of a disabled man living at the Oregon Veterans’ Home pleaded guilty Wednesday to intentionally causing his death on their 40th wedding anniversary last fall.
“This is one of the most bizarre cases that I’ve dealt with,” said Wasco County District Attorney Eric Nisley.
Esther Wilkerson, 71, admitted Aug. 24 to first-degree manslaughter before Judge John Olson, presiding judge of the Seventh Judicial District.
Her attorneys, Jack Morris and Richard Balsley, told Olson that Wilkerson was acting under “extreme emotional disturbance” when she ended the life of James Wilkerson, 67.
Her plea followed a six-hour settlement conference, said Nisley. He had originally charged Wilkerson with first-degree murder and insisted during negotiations with defense attorneys seeking a lesser charge that she acknowledge the severity of her actions.
“This was not a situation where someone walked into a room and killed someone else. This was a very precise and surgical homicide,” said Nisley.
Wilkerson was sentenced by Olson to 10 years in prison, with credit for time already served.
She will be incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility near Wilsonville and, upon her release, spend three years on post-prison supervision.
Nisley agreed to the lesser charge out of recognition that Esther was elderly and frail, and without any prior criminal history.
There was an unlikely chance that she would ever try to harm anyone else in the future, he said.
At the time of his death, James was nearly a quadriplegic and confined to a wheelchair with very limited mobility. He had moved from the Portland-metro area to OVH in April 2014 due to severe health problems.
James had served in the U.S. Navy for more than 20 years and deployed to Vietnam.
Esther claimed that she and her husband had a “murder-suicide” plan to end their lives.
She took action to cause his death while they were alone in his room on Bravo Wing the afternoon of Oct. 18.
Nisley said Esther had brought a 10-inch knife in her purse to the visit and used it to kill James. She cut his throat and then stabbed him in the neck.
The district attorney refused to accept the defense team’s assertion that Wilkerson be convicted of second-degree manslaughter because of the assisted suicide defense under Oregon law.
“There is no evidence that she did this out of mercy,” said Nisley. “Ironically, it is also very clear that she loved her husband very much.”
He said there was “no way” that James could have entered into a murder-suicide pact with his wife because they had not seen each other for months.
She lived in the metro area did not drive so could only visit when her
daughter was able to transport her to The Dalles.
In addition, Nisley said James could only talk on the phone with assistance, so that any conversation about murder-suicide would have been overheard by OVH staff.
He said James was not terminally ill and had never expressed the wish to die to anyone involved in his daily care.
Although Esther had several scratches on her own neck, Nisley said she did not have other injuries to support her murder-suicide defense.
“It is not very clear why she did this,” Nisley said of Wilkerson’s motive.
“This was not a couple who lived together and one became ill so they decided to go out together — she made the decision on her own.”Although Esther initially told police the decision to kill James involved concerns about money, Nisley noted that, in reality, she stood to gain little by killing her husband when he was the source of the income they shared.
Just prior to the killing, Esther had been found mentally competent by a judge in a civil case brought by her daughter, which greatly reduced the potential for a successful insanity plea, said Nisley.
He said Esther had a note in her possession when police were called to the scene by OVH employees who found James’ body.
The note apologized for what she had done and asked for forgiveness.
“She sat in the room while her husband bled to death,” said Nisley. “He was completely defenseless.”
Nisley said the case came to a successful resolution due to collaboration in the investigation between The Dalles Police Department, Wasco County Sheriff’s Office and the Oregon State Police.
In particular, Nisley said these officers were to be commended for their work: Trooper Mark Jubitz, retired Police Chief Jay Waterbury, officers Troy Becnel, Jeff Kienlen, Eric Macnab, Doug Kramer, Steve Rue and Jeff Halter; and sheriff’s sergeants Scott Williams and Jeff Hall.
Nisley also thanked staff at OVH for providing law enforcement officials with ready assistance.
Employees called 9-1-1 after walking into Wilkerson’s room and finding him dead.
Wilkerson lived in a double room; the other half was unoccupied at the time of his death.
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