Woman who buried body in back yard apologizes to family

Thursday, April 29, 2004 | 9:28 a.m.

A Las Vegas woman charged with killing her live-in handyman and then burying him in her back yard began sobbing Wednesday during her sentencing hearing as she apologized to the victim's family.

"I know I can never make it up to them, and nothing will ever bring their brother back," Anna Mitchel, 37, said before District Judge Sally Loehrer sentenced her to seven to 20 years in prison for the death of Cecil Walter Wilson, 44.

Mitchel, a former Stardust dealer, said she wished she could "go back in time" and change what happened so that Wilson would still be alive. She admitted to strangling Wilson with her pantyhose before burying him in her back yard. She pleaded guilty in March to a single count of voluntary manslaughter with use of a deadly weapon.

Mitchel said she herself has questions of how and why she killed Wilson and could offer no explanation to Wilson's siblings.

"There wouldn't be a compelling enough answer to satisfy the whys," Mitchel testified, handcuffed along with her fellow inmates in the courtroom's wooden pews.

Mitchel's attorney, Deputy Public Defender Brigid Hoffman, alluded to one possible reason why Mitchel may have killed Wilson.

Hoffman said Mitchel had fought off "repeated sexual demands" from Wilson, a man "down on his luck" that Mitchel was trying to help in the months before his death.

Mitchel's actions were irrational and the reason why she killed Wilson may never be fully known, Hoffman said, but "something caused her to do this."

Chief Deputy District Attorney Ed Kane said Mitchel's claim that she killed Wilson in the "heat of passion," along with the lack of physical evidence for how Wilson died, made it difficult to prosecute the case.

Wilson's body, in fact, was so badly decomposed when he was finally found in Mitchel's back yard that the coroner's office "couldn't say how, when or in what manner Wilson died" Kane told Loehrer.

A roommate of Mitchel's reported the murder to police in July 2003 when Mitchel was being evicted and tried to move the body, Kane said. Prosecutors believe Wilson was killed in December 2002.

"The best result we would have received at trial was second-degree murder," Kane said, adding that Mitchel could have argued self-defense and possibly avoided conviction. Instead, with the plea agreement, Mitchel took responsibility for Wilson's death, Kane said.

Loehrer followed Kane's recommendation to sentence Mitchel to 3 1/2 to 10 years each for the involuntary manslaughter charge and the deadly weapon enhancement, for a total of seven to 20 years in prison.

One of the victim's sisters, Charlene Tidwell, testified Wednesday she wanted Mitchel to serve all 20 years in prison and that Mitchel's remorse meant little to her.

"He was my brother and there's no bringing him back no matter how many tears she sheds," Tidwell said on the stand, crying.