LeFlore County search warrants issued in mid-August after new information came to light about the eight-year-old cold case surrounding the murder of Jody Rilee Wilson have resulted in two people, the husband and the mother-in-law of the deceased, being implicated in the crime.
A composite sketch drawing (seen above) was included in this plea.
Inside Fort Smith was the first in the region to report the new developments in the case back on August 23 based on information obtained from NorthJersey.com.
On Wednesday, the LeFlore County Sheriff Office announced the arrest of Donald Lee “Bo” Wilson, 39, who turned himself in to officials. on charges of first degree murder and unlawful disposal of a body.
Kathy Wilson, 57, who is “Bo” Wilson’s mother and who allegedly helped dispose of the body, is facing charges of being an accessory after the fact.
An Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent said in an affidavit filed in court on Aug. 16 that Jerry Wilson Sr. related to authorities that his son told him years ago that he had used “a plastic bag or a piece of plastic to put over Jody’s face and smothered her to death.”
Wilson Sr. also told authorities that his estranged wife, Kathy, participated in covering up evidence of the alleged crime.
A judge approved the execution of the warrants last week, saying in the order that he found probable cause to believe “evidence of 1st Degree Murder” would be found. Authorities, according to court papers, were looking to compare the DNA with evidence found in Jody Rilee-Wilson’s SUV, which had been found in the parking lot of the Pig Out Palace, about 100 miles from where she lived with her husband in Wister.
Wilson Sr. has long been estranged from his ex-wife Kathy for and lives in a Texas nursing home. His latest revelations are the basis for the new activity in the eight-year old unsolved mystery.
According to the New Jersey-based website: “Jody Rilee-Wilson’s body was found on May 8, 2009, by a para-glider flying over Poteau Mountain, less than 20 miles from where she had been living. She was last seen alive on May of that year, the same night that her husband and in-laws took the couple’s 3-month-old daughter, Annabelle, to attend a funeral in New Mexico.”
Rilee-Wilson, a New Jersey native, moved to Poteau in 2008 to live with a great-aunt, and shortly thereafter met her future husband, a mechanic for a natural gas company.
The wedding was held in September, and their daughter, Annabelle, was born in January. The couple lived in a trailer near Bo Wilson’s parents in Wister.
Friends said she was happy in the weeks leading up to her death, thrilled to be a mother and excited about a new job selling Avon products.
But one of Jody’s closest friends contends that Jody had argued with her husband and was considering a move back to New Jersey with Annabelle.
Wilson Sr. said that Jody was planning to take Annabelle and visit her parents in Roxbury and that his son did not want her to go.
“He was afraid that she wouldn’t come back,” Wilson Sr. told investigators.
Wilson Sr. said he remembers Kathy Wilson telling him: “We got to go haul this body off” or “We got to go get rid of a body.”
He said he didn’t ask additional questions before his wife left the house. He had been busy, he said, playing with Annabelle, dangling rosary beads in front of her.”
