Alzheimer's Patient Sentenced To 6 Months For Murder: Carolyn Krizan Wilson, 71, Found Guilty In Husband's 1985 Killing
Carolyn Krizan-Wilson, a 71-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia, was convicted of murder and sentenced to six months in prison on Wednesday. The Houston resident pleaded guilty to the 1985 shooting death of her husband, Roy McCaleb, and will begin her sentence on Dec. 26 of this year in addition to 10 years of probation.
"She is willingly admitting that she murdered him and that's something we've known all these years," McCaleb’s daughter, Pam Nalley, told The Houston Chronicle. "I think that means more to me than anything."
On Sept. 20, 1985, McCaleb, who had undergone back surgery a few days before and was said to be medicated at the time, was shot while he slept in the couple’s home. Immediately following the murder of her husband, Krizan-Wilson told police that she had been carjacked and raped by an unidentified barefoot man 10 days prior.
The “black” widow told officers that the man had broken into the house, tied her up, scratched her with coat hangers, and raped her for the second time on the night of the murder. According to her story, the barefoot man preceded to walk into the room where her husband was sleeping, retrieved a gun she kept under her pillow, and shot him. She also admitted to bumping into the man on his way out and fired two shots at him after he had dropped the gun.
"They had only been married like a year and nine months," Nalley told ABC 13. "Come to find out he was her seventh husband. She did get arrested for bigamy after my daddy died because she was still married to somebody."
Krizan-Wilson was finally charged with murder back in 2008; however, the indictment was thrown out by a judge. The murder charge was reinstated in 2012 after an appeals court took time to review the case. The trial was set to begin next month before defense attorneys and prosecutors settled on a plea deal, citing her advanced age and various health concerns.
"Her age and her medical condition, I think all sides realized this was probably the right and just decision to make for all parties," defense attorney Stafford James told ABC 13.