ORANGE : Ax Murderer Will Spend Life in Prison

A transient who had eluded police for nearly two years after the grisly 1985 ax murder of a 61-year-old Orange woman was sentenced Friday to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Carlos Wilkerson was nabbed in 1987 for the slaying of Hettie Lucielle Mathews after a forensics specialist with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department happened by chance to identify his fingerprints. The investigator matched Wilkerson’s fingerprints while training fellow investigators in use of the state’s fingerprint identification system.

In sentencing Wilkerson, Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan said the defendant is a “very deeply disturbed psychotic individual.”

Wilkerson, now 40, was convicted by a Superior Court jury of first-degree murder, attempted rape and burglary for the November, 1985, attack on Mathews as she slept. Because the jury also made a finding that the murder was committed during the attempted rape, Wilkerson is not eligible for parole.

Despite evidence of his mental problems, the same jury rejected his claim of insanity during the second phase of his criminal trial. Wilkerson, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Lew Rosenblum, has been in and out of mental hospitals and often lived on the street. He had a habit of breaking into homes, the judge noted.

In the courtroom, Mathews’ only son, Lemuala Watson, and other relatives of the dead woman wiped tears from their eyes as they listened to the sentencing.

Ryan denied Deputy Public Defender Deborah Kwast’s motion for a new trial to determine Wilkerson’s sanity and a request to dismiss the special finding. Kwast argued that there was clear evidence that Wilkerson was insane at the time he broke into the victim’s house in Orange and struck her numerous times with an ax.

Outside the courtroom, Watson expressed relief that his mother’s killer will be sent to prison for the rest of his life.