For Overton, Reality of Trial He Calls ‘Silly Play’ Remains Hard to Grasp : Interview: The retired computer consultant still maintains his innocence, saying he was convicted of murdering his wife with ‘no legitimate evidence.’

Richard K. Overton, convicted last week of first degree murder for the cyanide poisoning of his wife, said his trial was like watching a “silly play.”

“I kept thinking, let’s leave this silly play and go home,” Overton said Saturday, during an interview at the Orange County Jail. “It took a long time to realize it was real because the whole thing has been so theatrical.”

Overton, a retired computer consultant, denied any involvement in his wife’s death. He said there is no good reason to send him to prison.

“It’s a waste of time when I could be enjoying my retirement and doing something useful,” said Overton, who turns 67 on Monday.

Last week, an Orange County Superior Court jury took only six hours to find him guilty after a six-week trial.

Overton was convicted of using poison to kill his third wife, Janet L. Overton, 46, who collapsed and died in the driveway of the couple’s Dana Point home on Jan. 24, 1988. He faces the possibility of life in prison without parole when he is sentenced in September.

On Saturday, he appeared for an interview behind a plexiglass window, dressed in oversized yellow jail overalls that hung limply on his gaunt frame. He looked frightened and confused but was adamant about his innocence.

He lashed out at Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans for painting him as an evil and diabolical husband.

He said he was convicted in the absence of facts, contending there was “no legitimate evidence” presented at the trial that he poisoned his wife of 19 years, who was an elected trustee of the Capistrano Unified School District.

Overton conceded he was angry over his wife’s extramarital affairs, but said he was “too concerned about her health” to kill her.

“I sometimes feel like a victim,” he said. “I’ve been put in here by slander. I am the victim of a Russian commissar who says, ‘I represent the people’ and sends me to Siberia.”

The prosecutor cited entries in Overton’s diaries to show that he planned his wife’s murder. But Overton contends that the prosecution “took a terse note like ‘Jan came home from the boat feeling sick’ to speculate I was dosing her.”

Prosecutors suggested that Overton resorted to killing his wife because she had refused to divorce him. In his diary, Overton meticulously logged his wife’s whereabouts and listed men with whom he believed she was having sexual liaisons.

Overton was first tried for the killing in June, 1992. But that trial was postponed in September, when Overton’s then-attorney fell ill and a state appellate court declared a mistrial in August, 1993.

Dorothy Boyer, Overton’s first wife, testified at both trials that he tried to kill her through a process of slow poisoning in the 1970s by spiking her food and drink. Overton admitted at his first trial that he spiked Boyer’s coffee with prescription drugs but dismissed it as “a neat joke.”

Overton said that his fourth and current wife, Carol, “is an absolutely wonderful woman” who is “holding up heroically.”

He said he is confined to a single cell and spends his days studying trial transcripts. Overton said he was “pleasantly surprised at the respect” he has received from inmates and jail deputies.

The possibility of dying in prison has occurred to him, but Overton said he will appeal his conviction.

“I will never give up hope of walking out of prison one day,” he said.