Posted Friday, Sep. 25, 2009
BY MARTHA DELLER
mdeller@star-telegram.com
FORT WORTH — A Kansas man was sentenced Thursday to life in prison after a Tarrant County jury convicted him of the rape-slaying of his estranged wife nearly two years ago.
Jerome Overstreet, 52, was tried on charges of capital murder in the death of Vicki Overstreet, 51. She was killed about a month after she fled to Euless to escape her abusive husband.
Jurors deliberated nearly six hours before returning a guilty verdict about 9 p.m. in the 213th District Court, prosecutor Robert Foran said. State District Judge Louis Sturns sentenced Overstreet to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the only sentence possible because prosecutors waived the death penalty.
After the verdict, Vicki Overstreet’s weeping son, Lamont Webb, recounted the loss to her family, including her elderly parents, who came from Kansas for the trial, Foran said.
Vicki Overstreet was found dead in her Euless apartment Nov. 12, 2007, three days after she was last seen alive, leaving her job at Hawker Beechcraft in Grapevine. Concerned that he hadn’t heard from his mother in days, her son asked officers to check on her.
The medical examiner ruled that Vicki Overstreet was smothered, said Foran, co-counsel with lead prosecutor Alan Levy. Because of decomposition, it could not be determined whether she was strangled, he said.
Jerome Overstreet was not arrested until June 2008 because authorities were awaiting test results, including from DNA.
During the trial, witnesses testified that Vicki Overstreet left Wichita, Kan., to get away from her husband, whom she met while doing ministry in the prison where he was an inmate, Foran said.
Although witnesses testified that Jerome Overstreet physically abused his wife during their 11-year marriage, he had visited her several times in Euless and had made another trip there to reconcile with her the weekend she died. Authorities believe that Jerome Overstreet killed her because she changed her mind about reconciling.
Questioned about his wife’s murder, Jerome Overstreet denied even being in Euless the weekend she died, Foran said.
But investigators obtained cellphone records, a Kroger surveillance tape and store receipts placing the defendant within a mile of his wife’s apartment shortly after she was last seen, Foran said.
Forensic experts also matched carpet fibers, glitter and beads found in a vacuum canister in Jerome Overstreet’s Wichita home to carpet from his wife’s apartment and glitter and beads from her clothing, he said.
And DNA experts matched Jerome Overstreet’s semen to that found on the carpet in his wife’s apartment, Foran said.
Defense attorney Steven King did not return phone calls seeking comment about the trial.
Foran said King did not challenge the validity of the scientific tests. King has said the fact that the couple were trying to reconcile could explain the evidence found in Vicki Overstreet’s apartment.
King has said that Jerome Overstreet did not murder his wife and that someone else might have come in after he left the apartment.
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