Death penalty sought in Sartory case
BURLINGTON - Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for the 48-year-old former cleaning woman accused of kidnapping, drugging and killing a 73-year-old reclusive millionaire.
Willa Blanc and her son, Louis Wilkinson, 28, face complicity to murder, kidnapping, theft and abusing a corpse charges in the death of Walter Sartory, whose burned body was found in a field outside Indianapolis in March.
Sartory, a retired mathematician who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and a severe social phobia, had numerous investments - many of which were transferred into Willa Blanc's name after his death, investigators said.
Commonwealth's Attorney Linda Tally Smith told a judge Thursday that she intends to seek the death penalty for Blanc, but has not decided whether to seek the same punishment for her son.
Blanc and Wilkinson, both of Union, appeared in Boone Circuit Court Thursday where Judge Tony Frohlich scheduled a competency hearing for Wilkinson on Jan. 7.
After the mother and son were arrested at a Sharonville motel March 14, Blanc told a public defender that Wilkinson is "of low mental functioning and would be unable to invoke his own right to counsel," according to court records. So, she asked the public defenders to represent her son.
However, investigators at a hearing earlier this year disputed that claim, saying Wilkinson was highly intelligent and well-spoken.
After his arrest, Wilkinson began telling detectives about what happened leading up to Sartory's death. Wilkinson told deputies that he arrived at the house he shared with his mother on Feb. 16 or 17 to find Sartory taped to a chair in the basement. He also told deputies this his mother was drugging Sartory and that he had to perform CPR on the elderly man three times. After about a week, Wilkinson said he carried Sartory to a van but was stopped by his mother.
He was not able to finish his story because a judge ordered that detectives stop questioning him until he could talk to the public defender his mother asked to represent him.
The mother and son are now represented by two different public defenders.
Blanc's attorney, Joanne Lynch, asked the judge Wednesday to reduce Blanc's bond from $10 million to $100,000 cash.
"We are asking to set what we believe is a more reasonable bond," Lynch said. "We're not even anticipating that our client could make that particular bond."
Lynch pointed out that Blanc's bond is more than 13 times higher than any other inmate in the Boone County jail.
Tally Smith asked the judge to not reduce the bond, saying that Blanc tried to elude authorities and is a flight risk.
"The gravity of the offenses clearly justify a bond in that amount," Tally Smith said. "This is a death-penalty-eligible offense and the Commonwealth plans to file notice of intent to seek the death penalty."
Frohlich had not issued a ruling on the bond by Wednesday evening.
Investigators say after Sartory died his body was stuffed in a trash can, driven to Indiana in a rented minivan and burned. During Thursday's hearing an attorney for the minivan's owner, BMC Rentals, asked that the van, which is being held for evidence, be released.
Tally Smith said that both the prosecution and defense are waiting for laboratory tests. After the results are returned, the defense will have to decide if they need the evidence to be independently evaluated.
But BMC attorney Jim Kidney told the judge that the van was cleaned and rented eight times after Willa Blanc used it.
"It was sanitized," Kidney said. "If there was anything there or any substance it has been compromised to the nth degree."
The van has been held for 274 days and in that time BMC has lost about $16,000 in rental fees it could have made on the van, Kidney said.
http://nky.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20091202/NEWS0103/912030349/
Bookmarks