A Utah mother who admitted to killing her two children — James Warhola, 8, and Jean Marie Warhola, 7 — said at her sentencing on Monday that she thought her husband and his friends would kill her and have sex with her children and she was very afraid.
“At that time, for me, I did not have any choice. That’s why it’s not fair. I would like to go back to Korea; my sister is waiting for me,” Sun Cha Warhola said through a Korean translator.
“That I killed my children, it’s just unimaginable,” she continued. “I can’t even believe it, but at that time I knew that people were coming after me as well as my kids.”
Sun Cha Warhola, 59, pleaded guilty but “with a mental health condition” to two counts of murder, a first-degree felony, one year ago, but her sentencing hearing was delayed for mental health treatment. She walked into her hearing on Monday handcuffed, wearing a black and white blouse and jeans.
Warhola’s case was on hold for years while she was in the Utah State Hospital, from 2011 until she was found competent to stand trial in 2019. Her case began moving forward again, but not without additional delays after she was again found not competent.
Second District Judge Michael Edwards sentenced Warhola to 15 years to life in prison for each count, ordering the sentences to be served at the same time and giving her credit for the time she has been in custody. He said the concurrent sentences reflected that she was suffering from schizophrenia, and because that decision gives the Board of Pardons and Parole the ability to release her earlier if it decides that is appropriate.
“I wish there was more that I could do to undo what was done or to somehow assuage the pain that was caused by the fact that those two beautiful children were killed,” Edwards said.
The judge told Warhola he hopes she remains competent and healthy, and encouraged her to do as much good as she can wherever she finds herself.
Impact of the crime
At Monday’s hearing, Kenneth Warhola was also given time to speak about his late children and the impact their tragic deaths have had on him. He told the judge about how his daughter Jean Marie excelled at spelling; she was the only one in class to get everything right on their first test. He said his little girl also loved princesses.
Kenneth Warhola then spoke about his son James, who would delve deeply into the things he loved, starting with Thomas the Tank Engine and continuing to “Indiana Jones” and “Star Wars.” He said his son had just made a reading breakthrough, starting to read long passages on his own. James might have become a computer programmer, the father speculated.
A victim’s advocate stood next to the children’s father, flipping through photos of both children outdoors and at amusement parks, as he spoke shared his memories of them.
Kenneth Warhola said it “pains me to no end” that his ex-wife used blunt force trauma to kill their daughter. He said his son was fed poison and tied up so he could only use his teeth to bite his mother in an effort to stay alive.
“You can never fully understand, but you can imagine what it felt like to find out that your children’s bodies were in plastic bags stored in your bedroom, waiting to be brought to the morgue,” he told the court.
Kenneth Warhola found his children dead in his son’s room almost 15 years ago, on Sept. 9, 2010. He said he kissed them the night before, not knowing he wouldn’t see them alive again. He asked the judge to give Sun Cha Warhola consecutive sentences to represent the lives of both of his children and honor their memories.
Deputy Davis County Attorney Nathan Lyon said Kenneth Warhola deserves finality, a chance to heal and move on.
“I can’t even start to wrap my head around losing a child, let alone both children,” Lyon said. “The depth and the breadth of the pain and the despair and the sadness is incomprehensible, and Mr. Warhola had been dealing with this for 15 years.”
Argument for leniency
The judge denied a request from Sun Cha Warhola’s attorney to delay the sentencing for additional mental health treatment. The attorney, Edward Brass, asked for up to 18 months of further treatment, which he said could help her maintain her level of competency while at the prison.
Brass said he has been Warhola’s attorney since the week after her children’s deaths. When they met, she was curled in a ball on the jail floor. “I saw with my own eyes what an impact this had on her, what an impeccable tragedy this was,” he said.
He said that until Sun Cha Warhola got to the Utah State Hospital, the mental health system had failed her. Under the sentence the judge made, Brass said it is possible for her to move between the state hospitals and prisons for the rest of her life — a reason he requested more treatment first.
Dr. Edward Kelly, Sun Cha Warhola’s psychiatrist, spoke on her behalf at the sentencing and described her as a beloved, “always sunny” and social individual at the Utah State Hospital. He said his patient has made good progress and that in many other states, she would probably have already been released into the community.
Kelly said Sun Cha Warhola’s sister in Korea is willing to take her in, and that would be a very supportive environment for her. In the meantime, he argued the state hospital was the best place for her and said he does not know how she would handle prison.