Abusive history of killer of 80-year-old wife told

Kim Smith

Thursday, May 2, 2002 | 9:14 a.m.

A Sandy Valley man scheduled to be sentenced in two weeks for the murder of his 80-year-old wife is a "monster, a person who has delighted in bullying and abusing those whom he thought he could," a prosecutor said.

In a sentencing memorandum filed for Fred Huston's May 16 sentencing, Chief Deputy District Attorney L.J. O'Neale painted Huston as having a history of abuse toward loved ones.

"The crime for which he was convicted was one that gives new meaning to the old phrase 'malignant heart,' " O'Neale wrote. "The defendant was not only a murderer, but a murderer who thoroughly enjoyed the prelude to murder, in which he tormented his soon-to-be victim, Eldona Huston, a woman who had chosen to spend her life with him, who, moments before her death at his hands, was still telling him that she loved him, and that he was a fine person."

Deputy Public Defender Kedric Bassett, who represented Huston, declined to comment on the memo Wednesday afternoon.

Huston told jurors he accidentally shot his wife in the eye while they were grappling over a gun, but O'Neale writes in his memo to District Judge Michael Douglas that new information proves Huston has a long history of abusing loved ones.

Huston agreed to allow Douglas to sentence him instead of the jury. In exchange, O'Neale promised to recommend Huston receive a 40-year to life sentence instead of a no-parole life sentence.

It wasn't until after O'Neale made his promise that he began getting phone calls from people closely associated with Huston.

Brent Hunsaker was Huston's stepson from the time he was 10 until he was 13. According to a letter submitted to the judge, Hunsaker claims Huston drank excessively and was physically and verbally abusive to both him, his mother and his half-sister, Robin.

On one occasion, Hunsaker alleges, Huston fired four shots at him while they were deer hunting in California and on another occasion ran a motorcyclist and two passengers off a highway.

"Both the riders helplessly tumbled headfirst into the ground at high speed," Hunsaker wrote. "Their injuries must have been horrific, if not fatal. Fred laughed maniacally, swore and kept pounding the steering wheel. My mother and I didn't dare speak."

Hunsaker said his mother and Huston eventually divorced, and he said she was so scarred that she never remarried.

"No one in my family was surprised that Fred actually killed someone," Hunsaker said. "We are only surprised that it did not happen sooner."

In his memo, O'Neale said Hunsaker's half-sister, Robin Keith, told him about a violent outburst on the way to church one day when she was 14. Huston became so enraged that she wouldn't accompany him on a cross-country trip. She got out of the car and had her mother pick her up.

Keith said she never saw Huston again.

A former stepdaughter of Huston, Rebecca Griese, said her mother was married to Huston for two months in 1994. Griese alleges that Huston kicked her mother out of her own motor home shortly after the wedding.

In addition, Griese alleges Huston demanded and received the proceeds from a motor home fire despite the fact the insurance only covered items belonging to her mother.

"Although my mother was married to Fred Huston for less than two months, the marriage affected her badly. After she moved to my house, she would not go out of her room for months afterward," Griese wrote in a letter to the judge.

Eldona Huston died Sept. 24 at the end of a 20-minute recorded phone conversation with a Metro Police 911 operator. Fred Huston can be heard in the background threatening several times to pull the trigger and ordering his wife to say goodbye.

The tape was played for the jurors and was considered the most crucial piece of evidence.

Jurors rejected Fred Huston's claims of an accidental shooting. They convicted him of first-degree murder, with use of a deadly weapon, of a victim 65 or older.

O'Neale also intends to tell Douglas about an incident that took place four months after the Hustons were married. Both of Eldona Huston's legs were broken after she was pinned between Fred Huston's car and their house. Fred Huston claimed the incident was an accident, that he started the car not realizing it was in drive.

O'Neale has provided Douglas documents that show the type of car Huston drove at the time cannot be started while in gear.