Life Sentence for Overton in Wife’s Murder : Courts: The Dana Point man still claims he’s innocent of her 1988 cyanide poisoning. He faces no chance of parole because the school board trustee’s slaying involved a special circumstance.

Proclaiming his innocence to the end, computer consultant Richard K. Overton was sentenced Friday to life in prison for the 1988 cyanide poisoning of his wife--one of Orange County’s most celebrated murder cases.

Overton, 67, has no chance for parole because the murder involved a special circumstance of poisoning, a type of slaying almost unheard of in the United States.

Although the mandated sentence was a foregone conclusion, the hearing took on the charged air of a drama’s final act. The courtroom in Orange County Superior Court was jammed with reporters, Overton’s current wife, a handful of supporters and two jurors who voted for conviction in May following an unusual six-week retrial.

“Believing somebody was that evil was hard for me. Here is this older, scholarly looking guy who looks like your grandfather,” said Michael Lyman, a Fullerton reserve police officer who served as jury foreman.

Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald imposed the life sentence on Overton after the Dana Point resident declared himself the innocent victim of “a tragedy laid on top of a tragedy.”

He has maintained that his wife, Janet L. Overton, 46, a trustee of the Capistrano Unified School District, died of heart failure.

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“The truth is: I am innocent. The truth is . . . I never poisoned Jan Overton with anything, at any time, in any manner. Ever,” said Overton. He appeared pale and gaunt as he sat at the defense table in a jail jumpsuit.

“I don’t know what I can do. I’ll pray and I’ll do what I can to help the truth shine through the clouds,” Overton said.

As a rare as the crime was--there were only nine slayings by poison in the United States in 1993, the latest year for which data are available--the case was sprinkled from the outset by touches of the bizarre.

The first trial ended abruptly in 1992 when Overton’s previous lawyer suffered severe depression and could not go on with the case. And Overton unwittingly played a hand in his own conviction by leaving behind a long string of diary entries--coded in Spanish and Russian--that documented his wife’s suspected sexual affairs and hinted darkly, prosecutors said, at a slow poisoning campaign.

After the sentencing, the prosecutor called the case the strangest he has worked on, and said Overton came close to pulling off the perfect crime.

“It’s a pretty good crime, but it’s not the perfect crime. He left a lot of clues,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher Evans.

In a sentencing report, Evans called Overton “the single most blatant, arrogant, yet curiously effective liar and manipulator of the truth I have ever seen.”

In the same report, Overton’s youngest son, Eric, said what bothered him most is knowing “his father is responsible for the death of the person he loved most in the world.”

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But Overton’s current wife, Carol, insisted that her husband was innocent. “There was no crime. [Janet Overton] died a natural death,” she said as she left court with some of the backers who became familiar fixtures at the trial.

The death of Janet Overton might have remained a mystery if not for a chance phone call.

She collapsed in the driveway of the family’s home on Jan. 24, 1988, as she and Eric were about to set off on a whale-watching outing on a friend’s boat. An autopsy found no signs of foul play and investigators were unable to determine a cause of death.

But six months later, Dorothy Boyer, an ex-wife of Richard Overton, called Sheriff’s Department investigators to report that he had tried to poison her 15 years earlier by spiking her coffee and milk with a heavy metal called selenium. Overton admitted to adulterating her food at the time of the 1973 incident but was not charged.

After the ex-wife’s call, coroner’s specialists re-examined the stomach contents and blood kept from Janet Overton’s autopsy and determined she died from cyanide poisoning. Following a lengthy investigation, Overton was charged with murder in October, 1991, almost four years after his wife’s death.

Prosecutors portrayed Overton, a mathematician with a doctorate in psychology, as an obsessive diarist who killed out of jealousy over his wife’s affairs. Using passages from Overton’s handwritten journals and other writings, Evans depicted a marriage marred by escalating hatred as it unraveled in the final years.

In a crucial blow to the defense case, the judge allowed the prosecution to tell jurors about Boyer’s poisoning and the suspected poisoning of Janet Overton using non-lethal doses of the same chemical in the months before her death.

Both women suffered similar symptoms, including nausea, lesions and discolored and peeling feet.

Overton’s lawyer argued there was no proof Janet Overton died of cyanide. He contended during the trial that the level of cyanide in her system was too low to kill and could have been a byproduct of ulcer medication. Defense lawyer George A. Peters said Janet Overton was in poor health and had a damaged heart.

Peters unsuccessfully sought a new trial Friday, arguing that the prior poisoning incidents were devastating to Overton’s case and should not have been admitted in court. Overton is expected to appeal his conviction on the same grounds.

“I believe that Dr. Overton is not guilty of poisoning his wife,” Peters said at the sentencing.

Overton’s supporters contend he was railroaded by an overzealous prosecutor bent on a faulty cyanide theory. They attended the trial daily and wrote letters to reporters and others in defense of their friend.

Maurice Ogden, a friend from San Juan Capistrano who is writing a book about the case, said he felt “a great deal of familiar outrage at a miscarriage of justice.”

But another of Overton’s previous wives cheered the sentencing, saying she hoped the family can recover from the seven-year ordeal.

“I do believe it will put everything to rest,” said Karoline Wallace, who was married to Overton and had a daughter by him in the 1960s. “I hope the children will be able to heal.”