Evidence of other crimes and statements made by other victims will be permitted next month in the sentencing hearing of James Wood for the first-degree murder of Pocatello newspaper carrier Jeralee Under-wood.
And while authorizing the inclusion of that information Monday, 6th District Judge Lynn Winmill refused to delay the Dec. 7 sentencing hearing and he took under advisement the petition by Wood's attorney to exclude evidence suggesting the 11-year-old girl's body was mutilated after she was killed.Winmill directed the prosecution and defense to submit additional briefs on that issue.
Wood pleaded guilty last September to kidnapping the child while she was collecting on her newspaper route last June and murdering her some hours later. He has also pleaded guilty to raping two Pocatello teenage girls.
Wood has confessed to abducting and killing a woman in Louisiana 17 years ago, and he told Pocatello police that he abducted, shot and left for dead a Missouri woman in October 1992.
Public Defender Monte Whittier sought the postponement of the hearing, at which the prosecution intends to seek the death penalty, because he has been unable to obtain psychiatric records from Louisiana, where Wood was imprisoned and because a Salt Lake City psychologist wants more time to evaluate the admitted killer.
Winmill said a delay would put off sentencing for at least three months, and he instructed Whittier and Bannock County Prosecutor Mark Hiedeman work together with Louisiana court officials to obtain the records.
Whittier pressed Winmill to exclude post-murder evidence including graphic autopsy pictures because he contended it had no relevance to the murder itself and would only inflame the judge.
Wood has already admitted the abduction and murder, acts Whittier described as horrible, and the public defender maintained anything else done to the body occurred days after the killing and had "nothing to do with the crime." Enlarging graphic photographs and showing them on a courtroom screen could only "sicken" the judge, he said.
But Hiedeman said the acts in question relate to the heinous nature of the crime and the defendant's utter disregard for human life.
"The acts," Hiedeman said, "are relevant to Wood's character, what kind of person he is and what makes him tick."