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In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors.
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Arkansas trucker sentenced to life term for 1965 El Cajon murder
Wednesday April 16, 2003
EL CAJON, Calif. (AP) A long-haul trucker from Arkansas was
sentenced to a life prison term with the possibility of parole for
the 1965 murder of an El Cajon man and rape of the man's wife.
In a Superior Court hearing Tuesday, Clyde Carl Wilkerson, 64,
received the maximum sentence allowed under laws in place at the
time of the crime. He will be eligible for parole in seven years,
but prosecutors said they do not expect Wilkerson will ever be
freed.
El Cajon police detectives arrested Wilkerson at his home
outside Little Rock, Ark., in October after DNA evidence linked him
to the June 1965 slaying of Louis ``Jack'' Mercer.
Wilkerson pleaded guilty last month to murdering the 63-year-old
man and assaulting Mercer's 57-year-old wife, Lola. The woman
suffered injuries that required her to use a wheelchair for the
rest of her life. She died in 1979.
``It's been traumatic over the years, waiting, hoping for
something to develop in the case,'' the Mercers' grandson, Stephen
Harris, said Tuesday. ``I can't describe the pain suffered by our
families because of Mr. Wilkerson.''
Wilkerson sat with his eyes focused straight ahead during the
sentencing.
He was also charged with the murder and rape of a 19-year-old El
Cajon woman in June 1965. But prosecutors said they did not try
Wilkerson for those crimes because he would not have faced any more
time in prison even if convicted.
Wilkerson is suspected in several other killings, including the
June 1965 beating death of San Diego university student William
Dowd, as well as the 1975 rape and slaying of a 28-year-old woman
in Tulsa, Okla.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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