A man from Indiana has been sentenced to 85 years in prison for the murder of his mother’s boyfriends.
On Wednesday, 33-year-old Cody Allen Wade was charged with multiple felonies in relation to the 2020 murder of Carl Haviland, which totaled 85 years behind bars.
“The defendant repeatedly stabbed Carl Haviland not only in front of the defendant’s own mother but did so in spite of her efforts to physically prevent him from committing the crime,” Clay County Superior Court Judge Robert A. Pell wrote when sentencing Wade.
The suspect was on parole for arson on June 18, 2020, when he left a family cookout to visit Haviland’s house. Wade reportedly told the man that he was about to kill someone.
Wade then called his mother from her house, but she didn’t pick up, so he left a voicemail. The suspect, however, did not hang up the call afterward, and as a result, he ended up recording himself as he fatally stabbed Haviland in front of his mother.
Chief Deputy Prosecutor for Clay County, Zach Clapp, said that during Wade’s trial, prosecutors played the recording he accidentally left on his mother’s phone for the jury. After a four-day trial, the jury ultimately found him guilty of the murder.
“All murders are gruesome,” said Clay County Prosecutor Emily Clarke, who prosecuted Wade. “I think what made this case especially so was the fact that the defendant had inadvertently recorded himself throughout the murder, so we were able to hear the entire thing.”
“There was taunting going on,” she added. “The defendant was making racial slurs at the victim and saying horrible things.”
Wade’s 85-year sentence is broken down as follows: 60 years for the murder charge alone; five years for a level 5 felony charge of battery on a law enforcement officer with injury; five more years for a second level 5 felony charge of battery on a law enforcement officer with injury; 2.5 years for a level 6 felony charge of battery on a public safety official; and 1 year for a class A misdemeanor charge of resisting law enforcement.
He was also sentenced to an additional 15 years for being a habitual offender, bringing his total number of years in jail to 85 because some terms were given concurrently.
