FAMILY: 16 YEARS NOT ENOUGH

A Surry County man was sentenced to 16 years in prison Wednesday after he admitted he suffocated his quadriplegic nephew with a plastic bag in June.

Willie Wooden Jr., 46, of Martin Luther King Highway, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Herbert Lee Wooden in exchange for prosecutors recommending that he receive a 30-year prison sentence with 14 years suspended and no parole. Judge James A. Luke, who accepted the terms of the agreement, ordered that Willie Wooden be placed on probation for 20 years upon his release from prison.

Willie Wooden killed his nephew in the early morning of June 8 by putting a plastic trash bag over his head, testimony showed. Herbert Wooden, 43, had been paralyzed from the neck down after being injured in a shooting in Hopewell four years ago.

“I’m sorry it ever happened,” Willie Wooden said when the judge asked if he had anything to say. He stood expressionless in a striped gray suit and white shirt as the judge handed down the sentence.

Herbert Wooden’s twin brother, Ernest Wooden, angrily left the courtroom after learning nearly half of the jail time was suspended.

“He should have gotten more than what he got,” Ernest Wooden said. “He should have gotten life.”

Ernest Wooden and his wife, Monica, lived on the same lot as Herbert and Willie Wooden. The uncle and nephew lived together in Herbert Wooden’s mobile home.

Monica Wooden said she and her husband often visited Herbert Wooden and helped Willie Wooden and a nurse’s aide with his care.

She said her brother-in-law kept a device that looked like a straw close to his mouth. When he blew on it, a noise sounded in her house, alerting her that he needed help.

The device had been pushed away from his mouth the day he was found dead, she said. “That man was helpless.”

The couple said they suspected Willie Wooden early on. “He started acting funny,” Ernest Wooden said of his uncle, who was arrested three days after the crime.

He said his uncle, who had visited often with him, “wouldn’t come around me.”

Monica Wooden said the uncle “told too many tales” in the hours after Herbert Wooden’s death.

She said Willie Wooden told her he left home around 7:50 a.m. the day Herbert Wooden was found dead. He claimed to have left about an hour before a nurse found the body, she said. But later, she said, she learned Willie Wooden was spotted at that time walking not far from the house.

Prosecutor Gerald Poindexter told the judge that on the morning of the murder Willie and Herbert Wooden had an argument. He said Willie Wooden admitted to deputies that he had committed the murder and “went into detail” about how he killed his nephew.

“There’s an ugly element to any murder,” Poindexter said.

This case was special, he said “in the sense that the deceased was helpless at the time he was murdered.”

Poindexter refused to answer questions after the trial, referring them to Frank V. Emmerson Jr., court clerk.

Emmerson said he could not say why the prosecution agreed to a plea agreement.

Willie Wooden’s lawyer, Brent Jackson, said his client pleaded guilty because the victim’s condition makes the crime “more horrific” and might have influenced the judge to hand down a heavier sentence.

Jackson said his client, who grew up with Herbert Wooden, has “expressed substantial remorse” since the killing.