MORE: Tears, screams fill courtroom in Hamilton arson trial
Parker, 68, stood first with his attorney, David Washington, when the verdict was read. Then Tucker, 50, of Richmond, Ky., stood with his attorney, Tamara Sack. Neither defendant showed emotion when he heard the guilty verdicts.
Many in the courtroom cried, including Wolterman’s widow, Bre, and several family and friends. Parker’s wife, Bertha, and Tucker’s mother, Mae, also sobbed.
Parker was convicted of conspiring with Tucker to set his house on fire for insurance money and Tucker was convicted of setting the blaze for payment in pain pills.
Washington told Butler County Common Pleas Court Judge Greg Stephens before sentencing: “It’s a sad day, but we respect the process.”
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Sack also expressed a similar sentiment. “We respect the verdict,” she said. “It wasn’t an easy case by any means.”
Both defense attorneys indicated they would file appeals. Parker and Tucker declined to make a statement before sentencing.
Bre Wolterman told the judge she was 31 when firefighters knocked on her door two years ago and told her her husband Patrick had fallen through the floor. They couldn’t tell her if he would live.
“We had been married not even seven months,” she told Judge Greg Stephens. “These two men robbed me of my whole future. They not only took my husband from me they took my life away. We didn’t even have children, they took that away. I ask you to impose the maximum sentence on them.”
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Patrick Wolterman’s mother, Debbie, also addressed the judge before sentencing.
“I wish I could asked for leniency, I can’t,” Debbie Wolterman said. “While we were planning a funeral, they were gambling in Las Vegas. They have shown no remorse. It think the only thing they are sorry about is that they got caught.”
Cheryl Sullivan, Parker’s daughter, testified during the trial that she drove her parents to the airport on Dec. 27, 2015, for the couple’s trip to Las Vegas. She testified that she noticed things missing from the house that had been there on Christmas Eve.
“Some things were moved around, some things not where they were supposed to be,” Sullivan said, adding that angel figurines had replaced family photos in the living room and a “butler” statue was gone.
Prosecutors say Parker packed up items he held dear, including pictures of his two daughters, and removed them from the house before the fire.
Sullivan testified that her father handed her four envelopes with bills in them, including the mortgage and insurance, and told her to “hold them.”
Before boarding the plane, Sullivan said her father called her and told her: “The important papers are in the garage if something happens.”
Weeks later, when her parents moved to another home in Hamilton, Sullivan said she found a bag that her parents had taken to Las Vegas and in it were several framed family photos, including those that she and her sister had noticed missing from the Pater Avenue home’s living room.
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Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser also addressed the judge before sentencing.
“This was never a case where the state of Ohio suggested there be payback or vengeance for Patrick Wolterman,” Gmoser said, referring to an argument made earlier by a defense attorney. “He is indeed an American hero. He went into that house with the full understanding in his mind that he was was going to save a life — or lives — of occupants. Unknown to him, they were in Las Vegas.”
Gmoser said Wolterman lost his life for a few “lousy, miserable pills by a couple drug dealers and for gain.”
While the men were each convicted of two arson charges for igniting the house and for causing serious physical harm in the act, by law they could only be sentenced for murder because the aggravated arson led to the murder.
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Judge Stephens then sentenced the men with the mandatory sentence required by law — life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years.
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