Post by Graveyardbride on Feb 23, 2014 17:08:41 GMT -5
Judge Accepts Guilty Plea of Montana Wife Charged with Pushing Husband off Cliff
A federal judge accepted a guilty plea from Jordan Graham (shown above with husband Cody Johnson) a Montana newlywed, after she and the government reached a surprise plea agreement wherein Ms. Graham admitted to pushing her husband from a cliff in Glacier National Park. In exchange for her plea to second-degree murder, prosecutors agreed to drop the 22-year-old woman’s first-degree murder charge as well as a count of making a false statement to authorities. The development came before a jury was set to begin considering the case against Graham. First-degree murder means a crime is premeditated and she could have faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.
She also was required to allocute, i.e., explain to the court precisely what happened the night of July 7, 2013, when her husband of eight days fell to his death.
Following through on her end of the bargain, Ms. Graham, addressing District Judge Donald Molloy, said she told Johnson she wasn’t happy and wasn’t feeling like she should after getting married, after which they argued and at one point, he grabbed her by the arm. She said in her attempt to get away, with one of her hands on his arm and the other on his back, she pushed him. “I wasn’t thinking about where we were ... I just pushed,” she explained. After he fell from the cliff, she said she drove back to Kalispell without calling for help because she was so frightened she didn’t know what to do.
Ms. Graham did not take the witness stand to defend herself during Thursday’s closing arguments. Instead, her attorneys showed the jurors pictures and videos of Graham smiling as she had her hair done and tried on her borrowed wedding dress, followed by videos of the June 29 wedding and the couple’s first dance. These images were an attempt to chip away at the prosecution’s description of Graham as a cold, dispassionate woman who didn’t want to marry Johnson and then eight days later, led him to a dangerous precipice in the Montana park and deliberately pushed him to his death.
Those who did testify included Graham’s stepfather, Stephen Rutledge, who told jurors he chatted with her new husband about going kayaking and golfing on the morning of July 7. However, Johnson said his son-in-law had decided not to go that day because his bride of eight days “had a surprise” for him. Rutledge’s account was backed up by Eddie Alberto Colon, who testified Wednesday that his pal Johnson had given the same reason for calling off a round of golf.
Graham, 22, had already admitted pushing Johnson 200 feet off a cliff in Glacier National Park, but she claimed it was self-defense. Federal prosecutors, however, insisted she meant to kill her spouse, pointing to texts she sent to a friend saying she was “unhappy” in her marriage.
Deputy Flathead County Coroner Richard Sine told the jury that when Johnson, 25, was found in a small pool below a cliff, he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring and did not have a set of keys on him.
Both the prosecution and defense rested their cases Thursday after three-and-a-half days of testimony.
The Defendant initially plead not guilty to first- and second-degree murder, even though prosecutors claimed she told friends, family and law enforcement officers the last time she saw her husband was when he went off with a friend in his car. Additionally, they alleged she created a fake email account to send messages to herself from a person called “Tony,” who said her husband had fallen to his death while hiking. They also said she claimed to have found her husband’s body only after going to a spot where he liked to hang out with his friends. Although she insisted Johnson left with friends the previous night, she eventually admitted to the FBI that he had died in a traffic accident during a heated argument.
Sources: Lee Moran, The New York Daily News, December 12, 2013, and The Missoula Missoulian.