Jilted Man to Serve Weekends for Killing Lover

A jilted lover sentenced to 146 weekends in prison for killing his ex-girlfriend got away with “nothing but a slap on the wrist,” the victim’s outraged mother said today.

Edward Strother, 54, of nearby Oxon Hill, Md., pleaded guilty in October to second-degree murder for shooting Carol Gray, 33, three times in the head--while her 80-year-old grandmother watched.

Judge H. Carl Moultrie sentenced Strother on Thursday to 146 weekends behind bars and ordered him to pay $200 a month in child support to Miss Gray’s daughter, Eyvonne Mallett, 6.

Strother also was ordered to establish a life insurance policy payable to Miss Gray’s mother, Eyvonne Gray, 61, and to set up a scholarship fund for the daughter.

Gray said her family was horrified by the sentence.

“I was shocked. I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Gray said. “That’s like volunteering for prison. He was sentenced. He got nothing but a slap on the wrist.

“I think Judge Moultrie should be ashamed to sit on the bench. He’s a judge, not a social worker.”

Gray said her daughter, an electronics engineer, had refused to marry Strother in the winter of 1983. On March 20, Gray found him waiting outside the family’s home.

She said she left the house with her granddaughter and told Strother her daughter did not want to see him.

But Strother went into the house, found his ex-girlfriend and told her he had a gift for the little girl, the grandmother recalled.

He pulled out a pistol, pushed the woman to the floor--and shot her three times in the head, Gray said. When police arrived, Strother was waiting on the doorstep.

In the court order, Moultrie said he decided not to imprison Strother because “such incarceration would in no way benefit the decedent’s child nor bring back the life of the decedent.”