Sonoma Co. Man Pleads Guilty To Strangling Wife

A Santa Rosa man pleaded guilty during his trial in Sonoma County Superior Court Friday to the second-degree strangulation murder of his wife.

Dean Howard Eliason, 67, was charged with killing Virginia Mary Caetano, 64, by wrapping an electric cord around her neck at their home in the Rincon Valley Mobile Home Estates two years ago on July 24.

The trial began Monday, but Eliason changed his plea after a defense witness, psychiatrist Andrew Nadell, failed to appear in court. Defense attorneys said they were unable to serve Nadell with a subpoena to appear.

“We sat outside his house and couldn’t serve him,” Eliason’s attorney Kristine Burk said.

“He would have testified the defendant was psychotic and bi-polar,” Burk said.

“I didn’t expect he would subvert the judicial process. If I knew that ahead of time, I would have started looking for him sooner, but we didn’t because we knew where he was,” Burk said.

• Previous: Trial Underway For Man Who Allegedly Strangled Wife For ‘Making Fun Of Him’

The defense claimed Eliason suffered from acute and debilitating psychotic depression and was overwhelmed by his wife’s drug dependence.

When Nadell, who treated Eliason at the Mills-Peninsula Hospital in Burlingame did not come to court, Burk moved for a mistrial, arguing Eliason was denied his right to call his own witnesses. Judge Gary Medvigy denied the motion and said he would not instruct the jury about a voluntary manslaughter “heat of passion” charge, Burk said.

“The jury would have three options: guilty and first- or second-degree murder, and we agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder,” Burk said.

Deputy District Attorney Tania Partida sought a first-degree murder conviction against Eliason. She played a recording of the 911 call Eliason made to Santa Rosa police.

“I killed my wife with an extension cord from a radio,” Eliason told dispatcher Janel Mahas, later adding “there are no weapons in the house” and “you won’t need an ambulance.”

Eliason tells Mahas he suffers from depression and that he and his wife have been married 40 years and have two sons. He also tells Mahas his wife “made fun of me.”

The prosecution alleged Eliason gave contradictory statements about why he killed his wife. Santa Rosa police officers testified they found Caetano’s body face down on the floor with a cord around her neck near a portable radio, and that Eliason was calm and cooperative.

A forensic pathologist testified Caetano’s injuries showed she tried to fight Eliason off and tried to remove the cord around her neck.

Eliason’s co-defense attorney, Lynne Stark-Slater, told the jury in her opening statement that Eliason, a former firefighter and carpenter, suffered for years from debilitating acute psychotic depression that made him “gravely disabled and suicidal” and that he had been hospitalized four times.

Stark-Slater said despite medication and electric shock therapy Eliason’s symptoms persisted. She said Eliason told police officers on July 24, 2013 that he had not taken his medication for 1-2 weeks. She said the night before the murder Eliason was ranting and trying to get to his bedroom but Caetano was “crazy and incessantly taunting his behavior.”

Eliason said Caetano swung an electrical cord at him and she fell over a chair, Stark-Slater told the jury. Burk said Caetano argued with Eliason and deprived him of sleep for a long period of time.

Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch said the agreement to plead guilty to second-degree murder was “an appropriate judicial outcome to this tragic case” even though the evidence supported premeditated, first-degree murder.

“Through his plea, the defendant admitted responsibility for this violent attack on his wife,” Ravitch said. “This is one of my saddest cases. I don’t think he killed her in the traditional sense,” Burk said.

Eliason faces 15 years to life plus one year in prison for using a deadly weapon when he is sentenced Sept. 8.

• Also this week from Sonoma County courts:
• Life Behind Bars For Sonoma Co. Couple For Sexual Assault Of Minor

--Bay City News

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