| In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors. |
Arkansas trucker sentenced to life term for 1965 El Cajon murder
Wednesday April 16, 2003EL 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.
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