Admitted Killer of Sister, 14, Gets Probation

A Bellflower, Calif., man who confessed that he killed his 14-year-old sister 11 years ago because he thought he had made her pregnant was put on five years’ probation Monday and ordered to do 240 hours of community service.

Umatilla County Circuit Judge Robert Abrams told Kalib Valentine, 26, he would never pay his debt to society. “I’m not going to give you the luxury of thinking that you have paid your debt because you haven’t,” Abrams said.

“If I could some way see a gain in incarcerating you, I would do it.”

Valentine showed no reaction as he was sentenced, but he wiped his eyes with a handkerchief as he left the courtroom.

He could have been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison on the first-degree manslaughter charge that his attorney had negotiated with Umatilla County Dist. Atty. David Gallagher. Gallagher asked the judge to send Valentine to prison, saying he disagreed with a pre-sentencing report that recommended probation.

Valentine, who changed his name from Michael Wilson several years ago, announced at a Los Angeles news conference early in October that he had killed Karen Rochelle Wilson at their home in Oregon in 1974 by putting a handgun in her mouth and pulling the trigger, following a one-year incestuous relationship.

Until Valentine confessed, Karen Wilson’s death had been considered suicide. But Valentine said he was driven by guilt and became an alcoholic. He made the confession, he explained, as part of his recovery from alcoholism.

Gallagher said at the time of the confession that if Valentine had not come forward, no one would have known about the murder. He said an autopsy had not shown that the girl was pregnant and had given no indication that her death was anything but suicide.