Wisconsin man pleads guilty in quadruple homicide
The trial against Armin Wand III, a 33-year-old Wisconsin man accused of setting a fire that killed his four children and left his wife Sharon seriously injured, would have cost cash-strapped Lafayette County an estimated $40,000 and thrust his still-recovering wife onto the witness stand.
Wand pled guilty to the crimes last week, citing the costs to his community and his unwillingness to further harm his wife as two reasons he preferred to avoid a trial.
Earlier last week, Green County Circuit Judge Thomas Vale ruled that some of Wand's statements provided during the second day of a three-day interrogation in the aftermath of the fire would not be permissible in court because Wand was coerced by investigators. Even if that part of his confession couldn't be entered into the record, most felt that Wand had little chance of achieving a favorable outcome at trial.
The testimony of Wand's wife Sharon, who began divorce proceedings following the fire, was expected to be damaging to his case.
"Certainly I think the judge's rulings gave a very clear indication of what was going to happen at the trial," Wand's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Guy Taylor, told the Wisconsin State Journal. "Once that became clear, it was far easier to predict the … impact of the evidence."
How would the trial have progressed?
Had the trial continued, efficiency of the proceedings and accuracy of court records would have been vital to ensuring that a fair outcome had been reached. As prosecutors built their case against Wand and his brother Jeremy, who acted as an accomplice, they relied on Wisconsin deposition reporters to collect the information they needed.
