Court-Martial Set Oct. 3 for Marine Accused of Murdering Wife

An Oct. 3 military trial was set Friday for the El Toro Marine accused of bludgeoning his pregnant wife to death, then strapping her body in a car and pushing it off a cliff in Riverside County.

Sgt. Joseph L. Thomas entered no plea, reserving that right until after pretrial motions in the general court-martial being held at Camp Pendleton, according to Thomas’ attorney, Maj. Mark Stevens. A court-martial conviction could carry a sentence of death.

The body of Melinda Jean Thomas, 24, was discovered Dec. 10, 1987, in the wreckage of her burned car at the bottom of an embankment along the Ortega Highway in Riverside County. She was four-months pregnant.

The Riverside County coroner initially considered the death a suicide, in part because of a note purportedly written by the dead woman to her husband. But a Naval Investigative Service inquiry led to the arrest of the husband, who is stationed at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Melinda Thomas had been a “cooperative witness” in drug investigations for the NIS, navy investigators said.

At a military hearing similar to a grand jury proceeding, a friend of Sgt. Thomas testified that he was present at the couple’s Tustin Marine Corps Air Station apartment and heard Melinda Thomas yell out from the bedroom, “Please don’t hit me . . . please stop hitting me. I love you. Please don’t kill me.”

Lance Cpl. Michael Nelson, the friend, also said he saw Thomas hitting his wife with a tire iron as he straddled her on the bed.

Nelson was granted immunity for his testimony. He said he attempted to stop Thomas but froze when Thomas raised the tire iron at him in a threatening manner. Both men wrapped the body in a quilt and stuffed it into the trunk of a rental car, Nelson testified.