Woman guilty of murder
Posted on Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Richard Ivey Jr. ’s last words were “I love you” to the estranged wife who had just shot him, a Pulaski County prosecutor said Monday as the woman admitted her role in his murder.
Ivey was on his knees, bleeding from a leg wound inflicted by his wife, when he made the statement, just before he was shot in the chest by her boyfriend, 53-year-old Dennis Hutchinson, deputy prosecutor Terry Ball told Circuit Judge Marion Humphrey.
The wife, Brenda Ann Ivey, 39, agreed to testify against Hutchinson at his Oct. 29 capital-murder trial in exchange for prosecutors reducing the charge against her to firstdegree murder. She’ll be sentenced after that trial.
Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for Hutchinson, who has claimed he acted in self-defense in the slaying.
Richard Ivey, 42, was dead when sheriff’s deputies arrived, and the pair told investigators that Richard Ivey had broken into the home and threatened his wife with a knife.
With her guilty plea to firstdegree murder, Brenda Ivey admitted she and Hutchinson lured Richard Ivey to Hutchinson’s Bracey Road home Jan. 15 to kill him, and that she fired the shot that struck Richard Ivey in the leg.
Brenda Ivey had left her husband about two months earlier, prosecutors said. They had married in 1997 and divorced in 1999 before remarrying in 2005, court records show.
Asked by the judge about why she wanted her husband dead, Brenda Ivey said he had abused her.
“I was tired of the mental and physical abuse at Richard Ivey’s hands,” she told the judge.
When Humphrey asked her why she didn’t divorce Richard Ivey, she said she was trying to divorce him.
“I was trying to do that again,” she said. “I’m sorry for what I’ve done.” Ball told the judge that Hutchinson wanted Richard Ivey dead because he feared Brenda Ivey would return to their marriage.
“Dennis Hutchinson was afraid that Brenda Ivey would go back to Richard Ivey,” the prosecutor said.
Other revelations by prosecutors with the guilty plea include: Hutchinson and Brenda Ivey practiced shooting on the day of the killing, with Hutchinson teaching Brenda Ivey how to shoot. The couple had stashed guns around the house to have them close by when Richard Ivey arrived. A knife found by Richard Ivey’s body had been taken from his car by Brenda Ivey to bolster the claim of self-defense by her and Hutchinson. Two friends of Richard Ivey’s heard the sounds of a scuffle in the house, leading prosecutors to believe that Hutchinson grappled with Ivey to keep him from escaping the home, forcing him to his knees, after Brenda Ivey had wounded him in the leg.
The night Richard Ivey was killed, Brenda Ivey told him that Hutchinson was in Florida and that she wanted to return to their home, Ball told the judge. Richard Ivey brought two friends to help move her out of Hutchinson’s home, Ball said.
But Richard Ivey, suspicious of his wife’s intentions, had the men follow him in a second vehicle to act as witnesses in case of trouble, the prosecutor told the judge.
“Richard Ivey knew he was being set up.... However, he didn’t know what the end result would be,” Ball said.
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