GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A woman who admitted to killing a terminally ill man by cutting his throat was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison for the 2014 murder.
Heather Laureen Wright, 51, pleaded guilty in March to second-degree murder.
The victim, 63-year-old Glenn Converse, had been dead for more than a day before his body was found in late May of 2014.
He was terminally ill with lung and kidney cancer.
Converse and Wright were acquaintances; what led her to kill the victim remains a mystery.
“Miss Wright is in a much better place than she was when this case first started,’’ defense attorney Charles Clapp said during a sentencing hearing on Wednesday. “She’s extremely remorseful for what happened.’’
Kent County Circuit Court Judge Paul Denenfeld said circumstances of the case “are frankly a little unclear to the court.’’
“The facts are that Miss Wright killed a terminally ill man,’’ Denenfeld said. “But a neighbor ended up discovering the body. The discovery was that the throat had been cut. And as I understand it, the defendant and the victim were actually social friends. So, what went wrong is a little unclear to me.’’
Grand Rapids police responded to the victim’s apartment on Washington Street near Prospect Avenue SE after receiving a 911 call just before 1:30 p.m. on May 26, 2014.
It took several years before Wright was prosecuted. She was initially charged last July with perjury; an open murder charge was added weeks later.
Wright is no stranger to the criminal justice system; she has numerous arrests and prosecutions for crimes ranging from aggravated assault to domestic violence.
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