Original article no longer available
Deseret News
Friday, January 19, 2001
Note: Ann Tracy, Ph.D., Executive Director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness, confirmed that this man was taking Paxil at the time of the murder.
OGDEN (AP) — Bret Carl Lindeman has been sentenced to five years to life for the stabbing death of his estranged wife.
Lindeman originally was charged with aggravated murder in the Oct. 5, 1999, slaying of Shari Lindeman, who was stabbed more than 50 times.
He pleaded guilty in November to the reduced charge of first-degree felony murder and was given the maximum sentence Wednesday by 2nd District Judge Roger Dutson.
“He has never held himself accountable for any of his actions, so the system has to,” Weber County Attorney Mark DeCaria said after the hearing.
The night of the killing, Lindeman went to visit his wife, expecting to hear she was going to withdraw her divorce petition.
At Lindeman’s preliminary hearing a year ago, his roommate testified the blood-spattered man returned 45 minutes later and told him he had just killed his wife. The roommate said before Lindeman left to visit her, he overheard Lindeman call her “sweetie” on the phone and tell her he loved her.
“We have a system of laws dedicated to holding people accountable for bad acts,” DeCaria said. “The victim had the right to choose whether she wanted to stay married. He did not have the right to kill her because she didn’t want to remain in the marriage.”
Defense attorney John Caine said Lindeman had a history of behavioral disorders, depression and anxiety that “coupled with the stressors in his life at that time, and his on-again, off-again medication history, created a situation where he was almost a time bomb under the right circumstances.
“And given his psychological profile, he went off. It didn’t excuse the conduct, it explains it,” he said.