Autopsy findings led police back to Wilson
Regina Garvie
The Tuttle Times
TUTTLE Editors note: Some of the information included in this story was taken from the trial transcript of Steven Wilson. It was edited carefully, however, some of the material is still intense.
Mike Anderson was two blocks away from the police department when the call came in. It was a little after 6 a.m. on the morning of May 12, 1982. Officer Anderson was called to the station, where the dispatcher told him that a man had just phoned, saying he had just found one of his children dead.
Anderson told the dispatcher to call the citys emergency medical technicians and the chief of police. Then he drove to the house. When he arrived, he was met by Steven Wilson, who had called the police. Anderson later testified that he smelled a foul odor at the house, which was cluttered and messy. Wilson led Anderson back to his stepdaughters room, where the child lay still and quiet.
I walked up to the girl which was in bed and felt her arm and it was cold and discolored, Anderson said. And presumably she had been dead for a little while. Anderson checked on the other child in the home, a four-year-old boy, who was sleeping soundly in the master bedroom.
Anderson noted that the outside of the house was completely secure, with the exception of the master bedroom, where the window on the south side was open half way.
I thought that was odd because it had been raining all night long, Anderson said. And there was a foul odor in the room where the body was found, and a fan on the windowsill - it seemed like on full blast pointing at the body and running.
EMT Gary Forbis arrived shortly after Anderson arrived, along with his assistant tech, John Turner. After countless accidents and death scenes, Forbis now has a hard time remembering every case he worked. But he still has memories of little Audra Matheny.
I remember getting the call and going to the house, Forbis said. Something just wasnt right about the scene. You make so many calls and you get a sixth sense of whats right and whats wrong.
Forbis and Turner found Audras body laying on her right side, facing east. Forbis did a primary examination of the child and there was no respiration and her pupils were dilated and nonreactive to light. Forbis and Turner also checked for blood pressure and hooked her up to an EKG unit, but there were no signs of life.
During a secondary examination, Forbis noted that there was a stiffness in the jaws, neck and extremities that he associated with rigor mortis. There was postmortem lividity (settling of the blood) present on the right side of the body.
There was mucus and blood coming out both nostrils and the mouth, Forbis said months later, on the witness stand. There was also blood stains on the pajamas - at the seat of the pajamas. Forbis said that he saw a bruise on Audras left side, on her back, and scratches running in an outward angle from the center of her buttocks.
Steve Wilson told Forbis that Audra had been sick over the last three weeks, and that she had been missing school. Wilson said she had been taking Chlor-Trimeton and Anacin, and showed the Chlor-Trimeton box to Forbis.
Forbis and Turner were finishing up their examination when Chief of Police Kevin Coder arrived. The officers questioned Wilson about the last time he saw Audra alive, and what he remembered about the previous night. He told them that she had been sick for several days, and he heard her coughing and wheezing through the night. He said that he had woken up at 6 a.m., went to wake her up for school, and found her dead.
While the police talked to Wilson, Forbis contacted the medical examiners office at Grady Memorial Hospital in Chickasha. The examiner, Dr. Elaine Soter, requested that the body be transported to the hospital for examination. Forbis waited until the officers were finished with their initial investigation, then placed Audra in the ambulance and took her to Chickasha.
Anderson left the home at about 8:30 a.m., then went to Tuttle Upper Elementary and talked to principal James Cobble about checking Audras attendance records, to see if they lined up with Wilsons story. He returned to the Wilson home a little more than an hour later. Steve Wilsons cousins wife, Dianna Hays, had arrived to help with the family tragedy.
Anderson said that Wilson was worried about the messy house, since police were there and relatives would be arriving. He asked if he could clean up, and Anderson told him he could. At the time, police did not know that Audra had been murdered. Wilson went to Audras bedroom first thing, stripped the sheets, and put them in the washing machine. It was a move that would later be questioned.
While her stepfather was washing her sheets, Audras body was being examined at Chickasha. Her body had arrived at the hospital at about 8 a.m., according to Dr. Elaine Soter, who was on duty at the time. During Soters first examination, she noted that rigor mortis was complete, and due to the degree of lividity, the body seemed to have been on its right side for some time.
The first impression I had upon the child is that she had a copious amount of froth around the face, and around the nose and mouth, Soter would later testify. And I was a little bit puzzled about it at that time because I was told that she died in her sleep and that there was apparently no sound whatsoever - no struggle whatsoever.
Soter said that in her experience, anyone who has that amount of fluid coming from the nose and mouth had been in extreme respiratory distress and wouldnt just lie in a quiet position.
It just didnt fit the picture, she said.
Audra had not died quietly in her bed. In addition to the blood and froth from the nose and mouth, Dr. Soter noted bluish discoloration around the mouth, bruises on the upper arms, back and legs, various small abrasions, and blood coming from the vagina.
I was extremely suspicious as to whether this child actually died in her sleep, Soter said. I notified the State Medical Examiners office and told them that we had a child here that was - that died of a suspicious nature. Soter authorized the state office to perform an autopsy.
Dr. A.J. Chapman performed that autopsy that same day, at 12:35 p.m. He noted that at the time of death, Audra was slightly less than 63 inches long and weighed 100 pounds, and rigor mortis was complete and beginning to wane, or pass off. Chapman also noted and photographed a place where Audra or a friend had apparently written a note on her 11-year-old hand, although it was faded and hard to read. The letters were ah followed by hu and the words you do so dee.
The childish markings stood in stark contrast to what Chapman found during the autopsy.
Audra had internal tears and abrasions that had been caused by a sexual attack, Chapman later testified.
Chapman said that the tears and abrasions were from at or near the time of death, and that he believed the hymen had been torn during the attack. He said there were no indications that intercourse had taken place before the night she died.
Chapman also found what was believed to be the cause of death. Audra had irregular areas of abrasion on the nose, abrasions and hemorrhages on the lips, a bruise by her hairline and small hemorrhages in the linings of the eyes on the eyelids. Based on his findings, Chapman testified that Audra had smothered to death while being sexually assaulted.
At 1:30 p.m. that same day, Steve Wilson was arrested by Tuttle police for Audras murder. Four-year-old Sean Wilson was at home at the time, and he never forgot seeing the police put his daddy in handcuffs and lead him away.
Wilson was taken to the Grady County District Attorneys office, where he was interviewed by assistant D.A. Larry Kirkland, Kevin Coder, and deputy sheriffs Terry Cunningham and Tom Edwards. Wilson later testified that he asked for an attorney at that point, but was told one would have to be appointed.
Wilson told the men his recollection of the previous night. He remembered that at 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m., he took Sean to Williams IGA to buy hamburger meat, buns, milk and groceries. They came home, then barbecued outside at around 7 p.m. A 3-D movie, Gorilla at Large, was showing on T.V., on channel 25, and the children watched the movie in the master bedroom while Wilson finished cooking dinner. They ate during the movie, at around 8 p.m.
The movie ended at around 9 p.m., Wilson said, and then another show started on HBO at 9:15 p.m. Wilson said that Audra watched a little of that and then said she was going to go to bed. He estimated that she went bed around 9:35 p.m. or 9:40 p.m., and he and Sean continued to watch television in the master bedroom.
Wilson said that the next time he heard her was between 11 p.m. and midnight.
I was drowsy, Wilson told the authorities during the interview. I was half asleep and she just went to the bathroom and coughed and gagged a little bit and it sounded like she was going to throw up, and she walked back, and I said, Are you all right? and she said I feel sick, and then she went back into her room and she laid down, and I did not go into her room and check on her.
Larry Kirkland asked Wilson if he wanted to change his story, since the medical examiner had shown that Audra had been dead before 11 p.m., and Wilson said that he would not change what he was saying.
At an unrecorded date or time, chief Coder also interviewed Wilsons son, Sean, about what happened that night. The four-year-old told him that they all went to bed right after the movie in daddys bed, and that Sean slept on the south side and his father was on the north side, and Audra was in the middle. He did not remember Audra getting up in the night or anything, but he remembered his father getting up and taking a bath.
After Steve Wilsons interview at the D.A.s office, he was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, where samples of his saliva, blood and head and pubic hair were taken.
Coder said that when we walked in the examination room, Wilson said, I tried to help Audra breathe. You know, I dont understand all of this.
Wilson later testified that he was asked about taking a polygraph test while at the hospital, and he said he didnt want to take any test without talking to an attorney, and then he would follow his attorneys advice. Wilson said that he was told that they could get the test administered through a court order, and he told them that he didnt care what they got, he wanted an attorney.
Both Terry Cunningham and Kevin Coder testified that Wilson never asked for an attorney until after they left the hospital, at which time he said, Im going to get me an attorney and get the D.A.
Two days after Wilsons arrest, Terry Cunningham testified under oath that Steve Wilson had told him that he did not have intercourse with Audra, but that they did have sexual relationships that night.
He advised that if he penetrated her it would have been by accident, Cunningham testified. He did have oral sex with her and he advised that he took the sheets off of his bed after it happened because they did have blood on them. I asked him where the blood came from; he advised he didnt know. Cunningham said that Wilson told him this in the jury room upstairs in the county courthouse.
After leaving the hospital, Wilson was taken to the Grady County Jail. His initial court appearance was held May 14, 1982, two days after his arrest. Wilsons father retained attorney Ken Johnston to represent Wilson only a few hours before the appearance began. Assistant District Attorney Larry Kirkland appeared on behalf of the state, and Ken Johnston appeared on behalf of Steven Wilson. Witnesses were Kevin Coder and Terry Cunningham. After the proceedings, Judge Oteka L. Alford denied Wilsons request for bail and ordered he be held in the county jail throughout his trial. The trial would not be complete until Monday, Nov. 22, 1982 - six months later.
