Traskwood woman gets life in murders of 2 men

— A Traskwood woman charged with capital murder in the slayings of two men found buried in her backyard pleaded guilty Wednesday morning to lesser charges of first-degree murder.

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Marissa Wright, 51, entered the plea in Saline County Circuit Court before Judge Gary Arnold, who then ordered her to serve two concurrent life sentences for the murders of Joe Lee Richards Jr. and Randall Anderson.

Wright had faced the death penalty.

On Wednesday, Prosecuting Attorney Ken Casady said Wright uttered few words — answering simple “yes and no” questions — as she entered into the plea agreement.

“She had basically the same demeanor that I’ve seen her have in previous court hearings. Her demeanor is just odd. I wouldn’t necessarily say cold but at least detached,” he said.

Casady, who handled the case along with Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Rebecca Bush and Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Andy Gill, said the plea agreement came about after discussions with the victims’ families.

“They were interested in getting closure. They were all interested in getting this case finished and to get the resolution that we got,” Casady said of the families. “I think it was a just and proper resolution.”

Casady said he felt confident that Wright would spend the rest of her life in prison.

“There’s a difference [between life and life without parole], but it’s only a difference if the governor were to commute their sentence. It wouldn’t happen with somebody like this, I would not think,” he said.

Reached Wednesday, Richards’ father — Joe Lee Richards Sr. — said he agreed with Wright’s punishment.

“She killed my son, but I don’t hate her for it. I don’t,” he said by phone as he lay in a hospital bed with a broken hip.

“My solution to things is I believe in the Bible. In the Bible, God says vengeance is his. So I trade him for his vengeance and whatever he thought was right. And he’s doing it now. I believe that’s the correct way to handle it.”

“I don’t hate the woman because she done it. ... She’s going to be there the rest of her life. She could live 30 years up there behind bars. That’s not much of a life,” added the elder Richards, who is a Benton alderman.

A phone message left Wednesday for Wright’s attorney, public defender Pat Aydelott, was not immediately returned.

The plea comes a year after prosecutors charged Wright in the October 2010 death of Richards, with whom Wright told police she had been romantically involved.

Wright and Jay W. Beeson Jr., also were charged in the February 2008 death of Anderson, whose first name is spelled as Randal in some police documents.

Authorities arrested Wright after they received tips about her involvement in Richards’ death.

At first, authorities searched Wright’s home but didn’t find a body. Within days, police learned that she had confessed to her father about burying both men, prosecutors said.

When investigators went to confirm the story with Wright’s father, who was hospitalized, they bumped into Wright as she was leaving the hospital.

Detectives then dispatched officers to the home to make sure nothing would be disturbed while they obtained a search warrant, prosecutors said.

Those officers found that Wright had attempted suicide. They also later found a suicide note that contained a confession to the killings, according to court records.

Authorities then found the bodies — one under a koi pond and the other buried nearby in her yard.

Over the past year, court hearings have revealed that Wright confessed to the murders in detail, and court records show that she also admitted to keeping a diary incriminating her in the killings.

During audio recordings of conversations she had with law-enforcement officers, played during a March hearing, Wright detailed a vengeful killing of Anderson and a remorseful admission of fatally shooting Richards.

In the recorded interview, Wright called Anderson, who was her ex-boyfriend, “a piece of s*” and said “F, I did that. I don’t care. He deserved it. It took me years to get over him the first go-around. F him. He wasn’t getting me.”

She also told investigators that she got into a fight with Anderson over him taking her deceased mother’s jewelry, and she hit him with an ax. Anderson fled but Wright followed him, firing three shots to force him back into her home, she told investigators.

Wright also told investigators that Beeson helped her capture Anderson and force him back into the house.

According to the recordings played in court, Wright said that after she got Anderson back into her house, she hogtied him and interrogated him about the whereabouts of the missing belongings. When he refused to answer her, she decided to kill him, suffocating him with a plastic bag, Wright said.

Wright told investigators that she later took Anderson’s plastic-wrapped body and buried it. Authorities also have accused Beeson of being involved in Anderson’s interrogation and in helping Wright dispose of Anderson’s body, court records show.

Investigators found Anderson’s hands and ankles bound and tape over his eyes and lips. A spandex material, described as pink or red, was found stuffed in his mouth. He had been wrapped with many layers of plastic, authorities have said.

Wright said she later installed the koi pond over the spot where she buried Anderson.

Later, when she and Richards began dating, she told him about Anderson’s body.

Wright described her and Richards’ relationship as violent at times, but she repeatedly told investigators that she loved the man.

She said she shot him after he surprised her in her house, a tactic that she said he often employed to scare her. Other witnesses have said Richards found Wright and others making methamphetamine, and confronted her about it.

After she shot him, Wright said, she at first didn’t think she’d fatally injured Richards.

“Just shut up. You ain’t dying. There’s not even any blood,” she recalled telling Richards after she shot him.

When Richards died, Wright told investigators, she “just sat there.”

“I didn’t know what to do or who to call. Except for Joe, and he was gone,” she told investigators.

Wright then buried Richards in her backyard, placing a piece of plywood over the makeshift grave.

When investigators, acting on a tip, went to search Wright’s house, she told her father about the bodies.

Her father asked if the investigators would find anything.

“Yeah, Randy Anderson’s under the pond, and Joe Lee’s by the house,” Wright recounted telling him.

On Wednesday, Casady said prosecutors would have introduced Wright’s writings about the killings during trial, but her confessions were the strongest evidence against her.

“I take away from it that we have locked a very dangerous person up for two concurrent life sentences, and most importantly, the families that we worked with and talked with very closely wanted our pleas to have closure. They were a driving factor in getting this accomplished,” he said.

As for Beeson, who also faces charges of capital murder and kidnapping, Casady confirmed that his charges are still pending.

“But we will seek resolution in that case very soon,” he said.

In May, Myra Terry, 54, was sentenced to 10 years of probation on charges of hindering apprehension, abuse of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence in the case, court records show.

Casady said the investigative work of the Benton Police Department and the Saline County sheriff’s office in Richards’ death led to uncovering Anderson’s murder, a crime that might have otherwise gone unsolved.

“The investigation of Joe Lee Richards led to the fact that there being another body. ... We helped two families, and that’s a good thing — helped two families get closure.”

The elder Richards also recognized the investigators’ commitment to finding out what happened to his son.

“My son was the youngest. ... He was a big help to me because I’ve been down sort of sickly for a couple of years,” he said.

“I really miss him, you know, and you can’t replace somebody like that.”

Information for this article was contributed by Cathy Frye and Claudia Lauer of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/08/2012

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