Friend Says He Stood Frozen as Marine Clubbed Wife to Death

The principal witness in a murder case against an El Toro-based Marine provided grim new details Tuesday about the death of the wife of Marine Sgt. Joseph L. Thomas.

During nearly six hours of testimony at a preliminary hearing at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, Lance Cpl. Mitchael Nelson, 24, of Santa Ana, recalled how he stood frozen as he watched his friend club 23-year-old Melinda Thomas to death with a tire iron. Nelson then related how he helped Thomas clean up the blood-splattered apartment bedroom and cart away the body in the trunk of a rental car.

All this took place early in the morning on Dec. 10 as Thomas’ 4-year-old daughter from a previous marriage slept elsewhere in the apartment. They left the child behind as they took away the body of Melinda Thomas, who was four months pregnant, and dumped it in a car that they pushed into a canyon off the Ortega Highway in Riverside County, Nelson said.

Nelson was given immunity by military investigators to testify against Thomas, whom he described as a good friend. Nelson, who was stationed at El Toro and for a while worked with Thomas, is scheduled to be discharged from the Marine Corps on June 17.

Proceeding Delayed

The hearing--called an Article 32 proceeding--began May 17 but was delayed to allow Thomas’ civilian attorney time to prepare his defense. It resumed Tuesday to take testimony from Nelson before he leaves the military, was recessed and will resume on June 21. At its conclusion, a hearing officer will make a recommendation on whether Thomas should face a court-martial for allegedly murdering his wife, a charge that could carry the death penalty.

First questioned on Jan. 22, Nelson did not mention anything about a murder. But he gave a new statement on April 5 after being given immunity, and some of the details that Nelson recounted Tuesday differed from his earlier account to Special Agent Jose S. Ambriz of the Naval Investigative Service.

On April 5, Nelson told Ambriz he was sitting in the dining room of the couple’s apartment, and overheard a struggle in the Thomas’ bedroom. He said Thomas emerged from the bedroom after he had killed his wife.

On Tuesday, Nelson admitted to a Marine prosecutor that he heard Melinda Thomas yell out, “Please don’t hit me . . . please stop hitting me. I love you. Please don’t kill me.” Nelson said he made his way to the couple’s dark bedroom, illuminated only by the light from the nearby bathroom, and found Thomas hitting his wife with a tire iron as he straddled her on the bed.

Saw Bloody Face

As he stood at the bedroom door, Nelson said, he saw the bloody face of Melinda Thomas. He said he remembered attempting to push Thomas away from the woman, who was face down on the bed.

“It wasn’t a good attempt,” Nelson said, adding that after he pushed Thomas, the assailant turned to face him and raised the tire iron in a threatening manner. “I stood there and did nothing. I couldn’t move. . . . It seemed like I was frozen.”

Thomas then hit his wife four or five more times, Nelson said, and Melinda Thomas stopped moving.

Thomas, 28, sat quietly throughout the hearing, listening to Nelson tell of the murder and about how they wrapped the body in a quilt and hauled it up the twisting mountain road. At a wide spot in the road just over the Orange County line in Riverside County, he said, he and Thomas strapped the body in the couple’s late model Suzuki Samurai, doused the vehicle with gasoline and pushed it over a 60-foot embankment.

Nelson, who said he was driving a rental car, said he drove up the Ortega Highway followed by Thomas, who was driving the Suzuki. They had trouble finding a place to push the vehicle over and at one point turned around and headed back west on the highway.

He said they attempted to light the vehicle as it rolled slowly over the top of the embankment but it failed to catch fire. Nelson, at the urging of Thomas, then crawled down the bank and torched the car.

Before daybreak, Nelson said, the two men returned to Thomas’ apartment, picked up the 4-year-old and went to Nelson’s Santa Ana apartment where they showered and got ready for work. The child went to a baby-sitter.

On the evening of the murder, Nelson said, he and Thomas had been visiting another friend in the military housing complex at Tustin Marine Corps Air Station. When the party broke up about midnight, Thomas asked Nelson to come to his house, also in the Tustin housing complex.

After Melinda Thomas died, Nelson said he helped Thomas clean blood off the bed, walls and night stand. They changed linen, and later that day, Nelson testified, he threw the sheets, the tire iron and blood-spattered clothing in a dumpster near a library in Garden Grove.

Indicated Suicide

Military authorities apparently didn’t launch a murder investigation at the outset. The circumstances of the Suzuki’s crash, and a note from his apparently despondent wife that Thomas gave an Orange County coroner’s official when she came to the door to notify relatives of Melinda’s death, all indicated suicide.

Later, military sources said, during a routine follow-up investigation, Thomas began contradicting himself, and the Naval Intelligence Service launched a homicide investigation. Thomas was charged formally on April 5, about the time that the Riverside County coroner changed the cause of death from suicide to murder.

Under cross-examination Tuesday by Thomas’ lawyer, Edward W. Hall of Santa Ana, Nelson said he, Thomas and Melinda had used cocaine together, but fewer than 10 times. He said that Thomas had talked about compensating him for helping clean up the house and dispose of the body by sharing the life insurance payment on his dead wife.

Nelson also said under questioning that the day before Melinda Thomas’ body was found in her crashed car she had called police to complain that her husband had physically abused her. When officers from the military and the Tustin police arrived, she told them that Thomas had struck her in the face and choked her.

Thomas told the Tustin officers that his wife had attacked him and he pushed her in self-defense. Marine authorities then ordered Thomas out of the house, but his lawyer has said he was allowed to come back that morning.

Nelson testified that Thomas had talked about killing his wife, but Nelson said he did not take the threats seriously.

“I suggested that divorce might be easier,” Nelson said.

Thomas was unhappy and wanted to kill her, Nelson said.