Charlene Mess, a 49-year-old woman from Attica, New York, admitted she killed her husband Douglas Mess, who was 52 years old. The wife of the New York farmer stabbed her husband with a pitchfork, shot him in the back of his head and then buried him in manure. She has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and conditioned upon a determinate sentence, which means she has to serve 6/7 of the actual sentence, for 18 to 25 years in prison.
She pled guilty to manslaughter in the first degree in Wyoming County Court at around 11:30, on Thursday.
The charges
The terms of the plea deal stated that Mrs. Mess pled guilty to manslaughter in the first degree, which is a Class A felony; criminal use of a firearm in the first degree, a Class B felony; assault in the first degree, a Class B felony; assault in the second degree, a Class D felony; tampering with physical evidence, a Class E felony; offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree, a Class E felony; and making a false written statement, a Class A misdemeanor.
Mrs. Mess, in addition to the manslaughter charge, also lost her right to appeal, according to a plea deal made with the Wyoming County District Attorney’s Office.
Asides from the determinate sentence range of 18 to 25 years in prison, she will have an additional two and a half to five years post-release supervision.
Charlene’s defense attorney tried to defend her saying that she was mentally unstable, having the opinion of three doctors that testified to her condition, so she could not stand trial. But one expert described her behavior as inconsistent with someone incapable of standing trial, so a judge ruled she would stand trial.
Wyoming County District Attorney Donald O’Geen said that they were convinced that the defendant was lying about her condition, to avoid the responsibility to stand trial.
Source: Fox News