Ex-Soldier Convinced Lover to Kill His Wife, and Killer Asked Victim for Forgiveness During Stabbing
A 40-year-old former Army medic who convinced his lover to stab his wife to death will serve 35 years in prison for his role in the 2014 killing.
Local news outlets report that Michael Walker was sentenced Monday — nearly five months after pleading guilty to the second-degree murder of his wife, Catherine Walker, 38.
Also on Monday, Ailsa Jackson, 29, Walker’s lover and his wife’s killer, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, reports KHQ-TV.
According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Walker and Jackson were having an affair in 2014. Investigators said Walker talked Jackson into stabbing his wife to death, and made sure the killing occurred while he was working at the emergency room at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu.
In 2015, after being apprehended in Indiana, Jackson pleaded guilty to murder.
She told police she stabbed Catherine Walker in the couple’s home, and then waited 30 minutes, making sure she was dead before leaving the crime scene.
Jackson avoided a mandatory life sentence by helping prosecutors secure an indictment against Walker, according to West Hawaii Today.
On Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Brady said that, during the murder, Jackson asked the victim for forgiveness. As the stabbing was unfolding, Walker told Jackson she did forgive her.
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U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway said Monday she sentenced Walker to a longer prison term than Jackson because he was behind the planning of the murder.
“Ms. Jackson wielded the knife that killed your wife,” Mollway said, KHQ-TV reports. “And that was a terrible, terrible deed. But it does appear to me that you were in control. That she did what she did because you wanted her to. And you knew she had mental health problems.”
Authorities alleged that Walker told Jackson he was financially unable to divorce his wife, and that he would receive $400,000 in life insurance payouts if he died.
Walker and Jackson, according to authorities, used special text-messaged codes to communicate during the killing.
On Monday, Walker apologized to his wife’s family in court.
“I love Cathy very much and I would do anything if it could bring her back,” he said.
A military court found Walker guilty of child pornography charges in 2016. Investigators uncovered the child pornography during the murder investigation.
Then, in 2017, Walker was convicted of sexually abusing, physically assaulting and wrongfully communicating a threat to a young boy.
