Inmate Admits He Killed His 2 Cellmates

An Orange County Jail inmate acquitted of the murder of one cellmate and convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of another in 1987 has told probation officers he was responsible for both deaths.

In a letter to the probation officer assigned to the case, Jerry T. Pick wrote: “I brutally murdered both of those men I was accused of killing.”

The letter was revealed Friday only hours after Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald gave Pick, 26, the maximum sentence of 16 years on his manslaughter conviction.

The judge was unaware of the letter, which did not come to the attention of prosecutors until after sentence was passed.

But Pick’s attorney, Milton C. Grimes, claims his client’s admission is the “delusional” thinking of a mentally ill man.

“Jerry wrote that when he was feeling tremendous guilt over what had happened,” Grimes said. “One day he feels responsible; the next he’ll see that he needs help and wants to get it.”

Pick was accused of beating to death 71-year-old John Franklin Wilcox of Santa Ana on Jan. 17, 1987, and then killing 25-year-old Arthur Oviedo of Santa Fe Springs two weeks later. Both were cellmates of Pick.

It wasn’t until after Oviedo was found strangled to death in his cell with his own shoelaces that officials re-examined the body of Wilcox, whom they believed had died of natural causes. A second autopsy on Wilcox showed he suffered injuries to his chest area, and Pick admitted that he had kicked Wilcox in anger one time shortly before he died.

But Pick was acquitted in the Wilcox death after Grimes convinced jurors that Wilcox was already dying before he and Pick got into an argument. Prosecutors had asked for a second-degree murder verdict for Wilcox’s death.

Prosecutors sought a first-degree murder conviction, but jurors returned a voluntary manslaughter conviction in Oviedo’s death. Grimes had argued that Pick could not have formed an intent to murder Oviedo because of his history of mental illness, which Grimes claims began after Pick suffered a head injury in an auto accident eight years ago.

Grimes, who has praised Fitzgerald for some of his past decisions in Grimes’ cases, said he was surprised “at such a harsh sentence for a man who is obviously ill.”

“I’m concerned that serving that much time will do more harm than good for Jerry when he is returned to society,” Grimes said.