Hedric then sentenced Wyatt to 18 year to life in prison.
Janice Jordan, Rhonda’s mother, and Rhonda Wyatt’s 16-year-old daughter — who testified during the trial — were present for the verdict. They sobbed along with friends and other family members, but all declined comment.
Before sentencing, Butler County Prosecutor Robin Piper made a statement on behalf of Rhonda Wyatt’s family.
“There are no words significant enough to express the depth of their pain,” Piper said, adding the family feels that Wyatt had never shown any real remorse for his wife’s death.
Wyatt offered an apology.
“I am truly sorry for what happened. I loved my wife, I still love her,” he said.
After the verdict, defense attorney Lawrence Hawkins III said they would appeal.
“This is one of those cases that is tragic all the way around — he has lost a wife, kids have lost a mother and a mother has lost her daughter,” Hawkins said.
Piper said it is not his first case in which a domestic violence offender has tried to claim a death was an accident.
“It is not a new defense,” Piper said. “I am thankful the jury was able to see through it.”
Evidence in the three-day trial concluded Wednesday afternoon with the testimony of Wyatt, who was on the stand for three hours.
During his testimony, Wyatt stood in the courtroom and held the gun that fired the shot that killed his wife.
Wyatt told the jury he pulled the gun out from under the mattress in their bedroom to kill himself, but said when his wife looked at him with reassurance that everyone would be OK, he walked over to her with the weapon.
“I let go of the handle grip, but still had my finger on the trigger,” Wyatt said.
The defendant stood up and was permitted to hold the gun after bailiff and former sheriff’s deputy, Greg Blankenship, checked the weapon to assure it was not operable.
“I was not in my right mind, I had no intention of ever hurting my wife,” Wyatt said, while demonstrating how he was holding the gun as he approached his wife. “She was still facing away from me, I think she was looking at our family picture.”
Wyatt said he then put his hand on her shoulder and she looked up and put her hand to his hand and “then the gun when off.”
Wyatt cried on the stand this morning as he told the jury what happened the afternoon his wife died in the bedroom of their Trenton home of a gunshot to the head.
When asked by Hawkins to describe his relationship with his wife, Wyatt said, “I thought was the luckiest guy in the whole (expletive) world.”
“I loved her with all my heart,” Wyatt said, referring to his wife as his soul mate. “She was young and she was beautiful.”
Wyatt, an unemployed truck driver, described himself as “Mr. Mom” around the house, taking care of the couple’s 2-year-old son and his stepdaughters, ages 10 and 16.
Rhonda Wyatt worked nights at a nursing home and slept during the day, he said. In the months before the shooting, the couple struggled to pay bills.
“We were going under quick,” Wyatt said, The financial strain, coupled with injuries they both sustained in a motorcycle crash, was staining the marriage.
On the afternoon of Feb. 22, Rhonda Wyatt woke and began complaining about going back to work.
“She was used to me holding up my end,” Wyatt said, adding he was depressed and “tore up” about his life.
Wyatt said went into the bedroom and sat on a cedar chest, where he retrieved the gun and intended to end his life when his wife came into the room.
“She looked at me like ‘we are going to get through this’,” Wyatt said, adding he was relieved and moved toward her to give her a hug when the gun he was still holding fired.
Wyatt said he was hysterical when his 16-year-old stepdaughter came in to the room.’
“I knew she (Rhonda) was gone. She was limp. she wasn’t breathing,” he said.
After asking the teen to bring him a towel and a pop, he said he downed 30 Vicodin and 20 Xanex.
“I wanted to be with my wife,” Wyatt said.
During cross examination, Piper pointed to the many versions of the shooting Wyatt told police, including he was chasing his wife down the hall and the gun accidently fired.
Wyatt said he didn’t recall making that statement to police.
The 16-year-old stepdaughter testified Monday that her mother was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of Wyatt and the she had heard him utter the statement “‘Til death do us” part to her mother. The girl said Wyatt told her not to call police when she saw her mother lying in the floor in a pool of blood.
Janice Jordan, Rhonda’s mother testified Tuesday that two weeks prior to the shooting, Wyatt had threatened to kill her daughter during an argument over finances.
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