‘Spare My Life,’ Says Marine Convicted of Murdering Wife

An El Toro Marine convicted of bludgeoning his wife to death with a tire iron, then faking a traffic accident so he could collect $50,000 in life insurance, spoke for the first time at his monthlong court-martial Monday, making a brief plea to be spared the death penalty.

“I realize you have returned a guilty verdict . . . for the most serious of crimes,” Sgt. Joseph L. Thomas, 28, said in a boyish voice in the courtroom at the El Toro Marine Air Corps Station.

“I have worked hard all my life,” said Thomas, who had pleaded not guilty at his trial but made no attempt Monday to deny that he committed the crime. “I ask that you spare my life for the sake of my children and my family. Thank you.”

Thomas, a father of two whose current wife is 9 months pregnant, made his speech after more than a dozen of his friends and family members took the stand to plead for his life.

Speaking for the prosecution, which called no witnesses, Capt. Paul McBride made a terse, 10-minute speech asking the jury to sentence Thomas to death.

“The crime committed by the accused is so grievous, so monstrous, so inhuman that the only adequate response is death,” McBride said. “He is the author of a monumentally stupid tragedy. He is a disgrace to his family. He is a disgrace to his uniform.”

Thomas was convicted Friday of the premeditated murder of his second wife, 24-year-old Melinda Jean Thomas, who was 4 months pregnant when she died.

Monday, jurors spent about 3 hours trying to decide whether Thomas should receive the death penalty or life in prison. The jury of four enlisted men and five officers was scheduled to reconvene at 8 a.m. today.

In 1 1/2 hours of often emotional testimony Monday, the character witnesses, including Thomas’ first wife, current wife, mother, father, two brothers and a sister, described him as a mild-tempered religious man with a close relationship to his 4-year-old daughter, Mary.

“She loves him more than anyone else,” said Muriel Thomas, Mary’s mother and the defendant’s first wife.

All of Thomas’ relatives who testified also promised to visit and write to him in prison, in an effort to reassure the jury that Thomas would be able to adjust to prison life and function “productively” if given a life sentence.

“He’s a wonderful son, and no matter what’s been said or done, we love him very much,” said his mother, Mary Thomas. “And no matter if he’s in a prison, he’s still a member of our family. . . . So please, spare him.”

Thomas’ father, Raymond Lee Thomas Sr., testifying for the first time, denied his son’s guilt and pointed the finger instead at Lance Cpl. Mitchael Nelson, the prosecution’s star witness. Nelson was given immunity for testifying that he watched Thomas beat his wife to death, then helped him dispose of the body by strapping it in the couple’s Suzuki Samurai and sending it over a cliff off Ortega Highway in the early morning hours of Dec. 10.

“This is the first time I’ve had a chance to say one word in defense of my son,” said the elder Thomas, who said he sold a car and a trailer in order to travel cross-country and attend the final days of his son’s court-martial.

“I just can’t believe in my heart that my son is guilty.”