STURGEON BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — In Door County Friday, Richard Pierce was sentenced to life in prison plus three more years for killing his wife, Carol Jean, in 1975. Her body has never been found. Although she disappeared in 1975, charges weren’t filed until 2018.
A Door County jury convicted Pierce, now 86, in April.
Brian Fillion is Carol Jean’s brother.
“Your honor, the pain and heartache caused by the defendant to all our family, Carol Jean’s family, is impossible to quantify for the last 46 years and 11 months. Besides our fading memories, all we have left to remember Carol Jean by is a few pictures,” said Fillion, while asking for the maximum sentence.
Assistant Door Co. District Attorney Nicholas Grode asked for a life sentence for the murder, plus three years consecutive for hiding her body, calling it a separate act which deprived the family of the ability to say goodbye.
Defense attorney Kate Zuidmulder said Pierce continues to maintain his innocence. She asked for the sentence on the disinterment of the dead charge to run concurrent with the homicide sentence.
Pierce did not address the court before the sentence was issued by Judge David Weber.
“You will be given the most serious consequence I can give you in this state. I cannot take your life in this state but I am empowered to permanently deprive you of your liberty. And’s that’s exactly what I intend to do,” Judge Weber said.
Under 1975 law, which is what applies in the case, the Dept. of Corrections will determine if or when Pierce is eligible for parole.
The couple was planning to move from Sturgeon Bay to Cheboygan, Michigan, around the time Carol Jean Pierce disappeared, investigators say. Richard Pierce claims his wife left him, but prosecutors say he told different versions of the story to various people.
Prosecutors say Richard Pierce benefited from Carol Jean Pierce’s death with “a pension unencumbered by a wife; most of the important belongings of their marriage; land and a home in Michigan; a new girlfriend weeks after Carol Jean’s disappearance, as well as the benefit of Carol Jean’s silence.”
