The appeal by an Ogden man convicted in the 1985 murder of his wife has been denied despite a ruling that certain evidence was improperly admitted during his trial.
The Utah Supreme Court affirmed a Court of Appeals ruling that Jon T. Wetzel should not receive a new trial. Wetzel was convicted of first-degree murder, a capital offense, in the death of his wife, Sharol, and was sentenced to life in prison."It's just nice to see justice is done after such a long period of time, and that we could get to the person who committed this crime," said Charlene Barlow, assistant Utah attorney general. Wetzel's attorney, Martin Gravis, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Following nine years of marriage, Wetzel and his wife were separated in 1985, and divorce papers were served one month before his wife's murder. In her divorce complaint, Sharol Wetzel sought an order to restrain her husband from disposing of marital assets and pledging his retirement funds.
During his trial, prosecutors argued that Sharol Wetzel's request for this order caused Wetzel to arrange for her murder. Wetzel persuaded his lover, Kitty Eakes, to kill his wife in exchange for drugs and money to purchase the .22-caliber gun used in the murder.
Eakes confessed to shooting Sharol Wetzel on Dec. 20, 1985, and was sentenced to prison in January 1986. At that time, Eakes refused to implicate Wetzel in the murder but changed her mind while in prison.
Wetzel's appeal to the Utah Supreme Court argued that the trial court made a mistake by allowing certain testimony and denying a mistrial after one of the jurors saw Wetzel in handcuffs before the trial.
Justice I. Daniel Stewart, writing the majority opinion for the state's highest court, acknowledged that certain testimony should not have been admitted as evidence. But that evidence, he said, did not matter in the long run.
"A review of the record indicates that there was ample evidence to convict the defendant even without this testimony," Stewart said.
The juror's glimpse of Wetzel in handcuffs also did not warrant a mistrial, the court ruled.
"The defendant has not shown that he suffered any prejudice as a result of the encounter or that the verdict was in any way tainted by the effect of seeing him in handcuffs," Stewart said.