A woman sentenced to life in prison without parole for murdering her son's girlfriend by pushing her off a northern California cliff told the victim's mother she does not have a guilty conscience.
Virginia Rearden, 55, received the mandatory sentence Monday from Superior Court Judge Bernard Revak in the April 2, 1987, death of her 20-year-old housemate, Deana Hubbard Wild.A jury convicted Rearden, a retired hospital worker, on March 2 of first-degree murder and later affirmed a special circumstance that it was committed for financial gain in a scheme to collect life insurance money.
Rearden purchased a $35,000 life insurance policy in Wild's name the day before she plunged 400 feet to her death at the Seal Beach coastal overlook along Highway 1. The policy listed Rearden, her son and her then-husband as beneficiaries.