Couple pleads guilty to lesser charges

By Matt Pordum

Thursday, May 5, 2005 | 9:07 a.m.

A couple charged with killing a 57-year-old man in November 2002 were allowed to plead guilty to lesser charges Wednesday.

Twenty-four-year-old Robert Ellis McDonald pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of James Eady in his home at 124 Metropolitan Drive.

Under the terms of his negotiation prosecutors will not argue against McDonald receving a 10- to 25-year prison sentence.

McDonald's 23-year-old girlfriend, Jennifer Dolezal, pleaded guilty to being an accessory to murder, grand theft auto and conspiracy to commit robbery. If sentences for each of the three counts were run consecutively she would spend three to 16 years in prison. All three charges are probational.

McDonald and Dolezal originally faced charges of murder, conspiracy and robbery with a deadly weapon.

Officers discovered Eady's decomposing body on Nov. 15, 2002, after his sister asked police to check on him because she had not heard from him for some time.

Eady, a customer service representative with a home developing company, had been shot three times in the torso and stabbed once with scissors, according to the arrest warrant. His 1991 Ford F-150 pickup truck was missing and his house had been ransacked.

Police allege Eady had bought methamphetamine from McDonald in the past, and about a week before his body was found, the couple went to Eady's house with a plan to steal from him. They discussed the possibility of having to kill him if necessary, police said in the report.

According to police, Dolezal was to keep Eady occupied in the master bedroom while McDonald looked through his house for things to take.

Police believe Eady "accepted Dolezal's friendly overtones as a prelude to sex, at which time Eady ... approached Dolezal," the report says.

Dolezal then panicked and McDonald, enraged, ran into the room and allegedly shot and killed him.

McDonald and Dolezal stole Eady's laptop computer and pickup truck, then went to a friend's house where they burned their bloody clothes in a barbecue pit, police allege.