A 31-year-old Indiana man who unintentionally recorded himself on voicemail stabbing his mother’s boyfriend to death was sentenced Wednesday to 85 years in prison.
Cody Wade was found guilty in August of killing 53-year-old Carl Haviland in June 2020, the Terre Haute Tribune-Star reported.
Prosecutors said Wade called his mother and left a voicemail but didn’t hang up, and his phone recorded him killing Haviland.
They used the message as evidence, playing the message during Wade’s trial.
“We don’t ever receive a piece of evidence like that,” Clay County Prosecutor Emily Clarke told the Tribune-Star. “It’s unlike something I’ll ever see again.”
Clarke, who had sought a 92-year term for Wade, said she was satisfied.
“That means he’ll likely spend the rest of his natural life in prison, which I consider appropriate,” she said.
At his sentencing hearing, Clarke highlighted the grisly nature of the crime.
“All murders are gruesome, but this one is especially callous,” she said, according to the Brazil Times. “The defendant was yelling at the victim while dying.”
Wade’s attorney, Charles Hear, pleaded with the court for mercy.
“We are all here to get justice. But justice must be just,” he said.
Wade, addressing the judge, said he has had three years to contemplate his actions and talked about how he looked upon Haviland as a friend to him and his mother.
“My remorse is real,” he said. “I lost my friend that night, too.”
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