Waller pleads guilty to second-degree murder in wife's death

Clay Waller pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years in prison Thursday as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.

Waller originally had been charged with one count of first-degree murder and two counts of tampering with evidence in connection with the June 1, 2011, disappearance of his estranged wife, Jacque Waller, whose body was found last week in Alexander County, Ill.

The reduced charge and sentence were part of a binding plea agreement in which Clay Waller had to give authorities the location of his wife's body and provide an accounting of how he killed her, assistant prosecuting attorney Angel Woodruff said.

Under Missouri sentencing guidelines, Waller will have to serve at least 85 percent of his sentence. He also will receive credit for time served as he awaited trial.

As part of the agreement, the body had to be recoverable, Woodruff said.

"He did lead us to her, and he did sit for an interview ... to give his recitation of events," Woodruff told Cape Girardeau County Circuit Judge Benjamin Lewis.

Because Jacque Waller's body was found in Illinois, Clay Waller still could face charges there or at the federal level.

"I cannot bind the state of Illinois, and I cannot bind the federal government," Woodruff said during the hearing Thursday afternoon.

Lewis expressed dissatisfaction with the agreement.

"I will abide by the plea agreement, which has been presented as a binding plea agreement," he said. " ... That is not what you deserve, but it will have to do."

Lewis said he expected the light sentence to be criticized but noted that without a body, prosecutors would have had trouble gaining a conviction.

"None of those critics could provide the body of Jacque Waller," Lewis said. "None of those critics could guarantee a conviction -- particularly not a conviction at a trial without a body."

Clay Waller stood with his eyes downcast, his expression calm, fidgeting quietly throughout the proceedings, which included an emotionally charged victim-impact statement from his sister-in-law, Cheryl Brenneke, who has custody of Clay and Jacque Waller's 7-year-old triplets, and an angry recorded message from Maddox Waller, one of the triplets.

Onlookers were silent, but a few could be seen fighting tears and dabbing at their faces with tissues as the child's voice filled the courtroom.

"To Dad: This is Maddox. The son of you. You killed our mom," Maddox Waller said in his recorded statement. "You're a big, fat jerk. Do you know that? You shouldn't have killed our mom. ... I thought you were a good guy. Now I know you're not. You big, fat jerk, you. I wish you weren't ... my dad. ... I never want to see you again. You understand? We don't like you anymore. This is the last time you'll hear of me, OK? Bye!"

In her statement to the court, Brenneke was not happy with the disposition of the case but said she had agreed to the plea bargain for the sake of her family.

"I did not want this deal. My mother and father and those children deserve to bury her, though. Jacque was in heaven the second you killed her. I personally did not need that," Brenneke said of burying her sister's body. "I needed you to suffer the rest of your life, is what I needed, but I loved them enough to give them what they needed."

Brenneke used much of her statement to address Clay Waller directly.

"Was it worth it, Clay? Does she haunt you? Do you see it? Do you see the light going out of her eyes?" she asked, her voice rising with emotion. " ... Do you see it over and over? I pray that you do."

Brenneke told Clay Waller the last year of his wife's life -- after she left him and began planning her life with a new boyfriend -- was the happiest.

"He loved her and cherished her," she said of the new boyfriend. "He treated her with the respect she deserved, and not like her paycheck or a pawn in his game."

Clay and Jacque Waller together were the parents of triplets. In a diary recovered from a laptop computer found in her abandoned SUV, Jacque Waller stated Clay Waller had threatened to kill her if she divorced him and had threatened to kill the children just to hurt her. In the diary, she expressed fear that Waller would kill her if she left, but Brenneke said his threats against the children were the last straw.

"She said she would rather be dead than to live and be married to you," Brenneke said.

Brenneke said outside the courtroom after the hearing that she wanted Clay Waller to "die in prison," but that "he didn't completely steal our joy."

In court, Lewis asked Clay Waller to confirm he had killed his wife by "repeatedly striking her about the head and face and by pressing your forearm against her neck with all the weight of your body, thereby suffocating her to death."

Clay Waller responded softly.

"I did that," he admitted.

Lewis asked him to explain what he did that made him guilty of the accusations against him.

"We got in a argument, and I lost my temper, and I -- I -- I caused her death," Waller stammered.

Brenneke told Waller she hopes he suffers in prison.

"I would like to think a little jailhouse justice is in your future," she said.

Brenneke also spoke of Waller's children -- the triplets and his son from a previous marriage, who now has a son of his own.

"Did you know you are a grandpa? I hope and pray you never see that child. ... But I will. I'll see that baby. I'll kiss his little cheeks," she said. " ... Was it worth it, Clay? Was it worth it? You robbed those children of the most beautiful, loving mother they could ever have. I will pale in comparison to the love she could give them, but I am going to do my best."

The courtroom was packed with family, friends, media and onlookers. Many Southeast Missouri residents have followed the case closely since the news of Jacque Waller's disappearance broke in 2011.

Scores of volunteers -- many of whom had never met Jacque Waller -- had searched thousands of acres in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois, hoping to find her body.

Wendi Bird Barnhart, who was one of the searchers in the summer of 2011, said Clay Waller would drive by their searches and taunt the volunteers with laughs and obscene gestures.

"Clay was his cowardly self as always," Barnhart said. "He never turned around and looked at Jacque's family. He never looked sorry. He never did act like a man."

Barnhart said the people "who lost out the most were those three beautiful triplets."

In August 2012, Clay Waller pleaded not guilty to one count of first-degree murder and two counts of tampering with evidence in connection with his wife's disappearance.

Blood and circumstantial evidence linked him to the crime, but without a body, prosecutors faced an uphill battle, legal experts have said.

In a July 19, 2011, interview with the Southeast Missourian, Clay Waller vehemently denied having anything to do with Jacque Waller's disappearance and accused law enforcement of staging a "witch hunt" against him.

During the interview, he also claimed he had been harassed and even physically assaulted by various members of the community in the wake of his wife's disappearance.

His attorney, public defender Chris Davis, had requested a change of venue, citing pretrial publicity that would have made it difficult to find a fair, impartial jury with no prior knowledge of the case.

Davis, prosecutors and Judge Benjamin Lewis eventually agreed to a stipulation that would have kept the trial in Cape Girardeau County, with a jury brought in from Cole County to hear the case.

That step became unnecessary when Waller reversed his plea Thursday and admitted to killing his wife.

The discovery of the body was the latest, and possibly biggest, piece of evidence to surface during the investigation. Other evidence included Jacque Waller's journal entries, her abandoned Honda Pilot with slashed tires, a truck and boat police believe Clay Waller used to dispose of his wife's body and blood on carpet that was hidden in a crawl space. Authorities also said Clay Waller confessed the murder to his father, but the elder Waller died before the testimony could be recorded for the purpose of prosecution in this case.

Jacque Waller's family and friends all long suspected Clay Waller had killed her, even though her body was missing for two years. He was named as a "person of interest" on June 6, 2011, just five days after the disappearance.

Police and prosecutors played the case close to the vest, releasing little information even after Jacque Waller's body was discovered. The plea avoided the cost of keeping a jury from another county in Cape Girardeau County during the trial, and saved Jacque Waller's family the strain of reliving the events through the trial.

Southeast Missourian reporter Erin Ragan contributed to this story.

epriddy@semissourian.com

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