The State - News from June 17, 1986

A Fresno man was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering his fifth wife by poisoning her with the herbicide paraquat. A Monterey County Superior Court jury had chosen life imprisonment, rather than the death penalty, for Steven David Catlin, 41. Judge Robert O’Farrell agreed with the decision in formally sentencing Catlin for the March, 1984, slaying of Glenna Kaye Catlin. A trial is pending in Kern County on charges that Catlin used paraquat to murder his mother and fourth wife in Bakersfield. He collected $56,000 on a life insurance policy after Glenna Kaye Catlin died and smaller amounts from the other two estates. The trial was held in Monterey, because of pretrial publicity in Fresno.