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Story Archives: Three life sentences for 16-year-old Connor Wood for murder of parents, friend


Three life sentences for 16-year-old Connor Wood for murder of parents, friend
by Stanley Nelson - posted Thursday, May 1st, 2008 @ 8:26 amE-mail Story E-mail Story | Print Story Print Story 
Sixteen-year-old Connor Wood was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences today (Wednesday) for the March 14, 2007, murders of his parents and 16-year-old friend.

Judge Leo Boothe's sentence followed two statements by victims of Wood's crime, which occurred in the confines of his home at 119 Shady Lane in Ferriday last year. There, he used three different weapons -- two handguns and a rifle -- and fired two dozen or more times, leaving three people dead.

Two of the victims included his parents -- mother Geraldine (Jeri) Trevillion Wood, 40, and father, John David Wood, 42, as the two slept in their bed on the night of the murders.

Wood gunned down his friend, Matthew Whittington, in the hallway of the home shortly afterward.

First Asst. Dist. Atty. Brad Burget, who prosecuted Wood, asked the judge to sentence Wood to three consecutive life terms -- one after the other. Wood's attorney, Paul Lempke, asked that Wood be sentenced to three concurrent life terms in which all three terms run their course at the same time.

Only two members of the victims' families took the stand to give impact statements today -- Whittington's mother Judy, and Geraldine Wood's sister, Robin Kaiser of Natchez.

Kaiser spoke last and only briefly. Looking at her nephew, she said "your mother and father loved you...we love you, sweetheart." But she said his crimes were "horrible," that she wished he would have come to them for help prior to the murders and that she prayed he "finds the Lord" and forgiveness.

As she passed the defense table, she looked at Wood, and mouthed, "I love you."

Judy Whittington, holding a framed photo of Matthew and wearing a white t-shirt with his image on the back, gave a prepared statement in which her voice was strong and forceful most of the time. She often looked at Wood.

Sometimes she shouted and at other times she cried as she read her statement, which centered on the life of her son and his future, and how the murders devastated so many lives. The murders, she said, leave everyone seeking the answer to one question: "Why?"

While she lovingly remembered her "precious son," who had brown eyes, and dark brown hair, she also spoke her mind to Wood, calling him a "coward...soulless and evil." She said his actions would "haunt me and my family and this community for the rest of our lives."

She said she "prays" that the public's eyes are open to violent crimes and the aftermath, and expressed concern over the easy access young people have to guns and ammunition.

Whittington said her grief has been "beyond comprehension...it tears me apart each and every day." At night, she said, she awakes with a "gut-wrenching realization" that her "precious son" is no longer here.

The nightmare of what happened last year, said Whittington, has left her "a shell of the person I used to be," sometimes "bitter and ungrateful." She said she "used to be happy" with a "song" in her heart and a "smile on my face."

She called Matthew a "gift of God," remembering him as a "perfect little angel," who was "beautiful" inside and out, who loved to laugh yet could be serious, shy, independent and opinionated."

Looking at Connor Wood, she said his decision to kill her son has "given me the worse pain imaginable." and said the rage and agony sometimes "makes my inside quake."

She said the love of her husband, son and daughter-in-law, and entire family kept her going, but lamented the thought that her family would never see Matthew again, that he would never marry and give her grandchildren.

Her personal fear, she said, is that "I may never recover."

Nothing could prepare her, said Whittington, for the "lies, manipulation and evil plans of Connor Wood on the day he (Matthew) breathed his last, sweet breath."

Wood, she said, "ripped away" Matthew's future with "such brutality" that it can "hardly be imagined."

Whittington said the thought of a crime "so senseless" horrifies her, recalling that her son was shot nine times, taking seven shots to the body, one to "his beautiful face," and one "to the back of his head."

"It kills me inside," she said, adding that she "physically aches" for the loss of Matthew.

When she saw for the first time the photos in court two weeks ago of her son lying in a pool of his own blood she said she experienced "anger like I'd never known before." She "couldn't recognize" her own son's face, she said.

Matthew loved all life, said Whittington, "including animals," adding that "he wouldn't kill a spider."

She said Scouting programs were important in the lives of both of her sons -- Matthew and Daniel.

Many in the courtroom wiped away tears as both Judy Whittington and Kaiser gave statements.

But throughout numerous hearings, the trial and today's sentencing, the baby-faced Connor Wood, 15 at the time of the murders, showed no emotion.

Not a tear did he shed.
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